There were plenty of rap beefs in 2021, but the feud between Kanye West and Drake will probably go down as one of the strangest feuds of the year.
Back in August, particularly around the releases of Ye’s Donda album and Drake’s Certified Lover Boy LP, their three-year-old dispute was rekindled when Ye allegedly leaked the OVO Sound leader’s Toronto address on social media. The Chicago rapper-producer did it in response to Drake taking lyrical shots at him on Trippie Redd’s song “Betrayal.”
“All these fools I’m beefin’ that I barely know,” Drake rhymes on the track. “Forty-five, 44 (Burned out), let it go.”
Both Kanye and Drake’s nemesis’ Pusha-T are 44 years old. Drake appears to be referencing Kanye’s mysterious Donda release date with the follow-up line, “’Ye ain’t changin’ shit for me, it’s set in stone.” However, “You ain’t changin’ shit for me, it’s set in stone” could also be the lyrics.
Ye also shared a screenshot of a group text that apparently included Drake, the late Virgil Abloh, Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Pusha-T and Travis Scott. The text included a picture of actor Joaquin Phoenix dressed as the Joker from the 2019 film of the same name. “I live for this. I’ve been fucked with by nerd ass jock n***as like you my whole life. You will never recover. I promise you,” Kanye wrote in the text.
Drake would later intensify their feud by leaking Ye and André 3000’s collaborative track “Life of the Party,” which was mysteriously left off the initial release of the Donda album. On the song, Ye spits a cautionary verse at the OVO leader. “Told Drake, ‘Don’t play with me on GD’,” he raps, adding, “I told you I was gonna take the summer back/So any of the cap, won’t take none of that/Where my muthafuckin’ red hat?”
Then miraculously, in November, Ye and Drake squashed their beef for a common humanitarian purpose. The dynamic duo teamed up to bring attention to the judicial plight of incarcerated Gangster’s Disciples cofounder Larry Hoover. The one-night benefit concert, titled “Free Larry Hoover,” occurs on Dec. 9 at the L.A. Coliseum in Los Angeles. The event is being organized to help raise awareness and support for Hoover and the issue of prison reform.
The event will also be the first time Ye and Drake will perform together since ending their feud.
