Getty Kanye West and Drake.
Kanye West and Drake are among the popular names in contemporary music. The rappers have worked alongside one another for nearly a decade, but this year has been a particularly troublesome one when it comes to their relationship. And based on the twitter explosion that happened Thursday, it doesn’t look as though things are going to calm down anytime soon.
After rumors that West leaked details about Drake’s illegitimate son, he put the rapper on blast by demanding an apology and then publicly denying Drake’s request for a sample clearance. “This proves sh*t faker than wrestling,” West tweeted with a screenshot of Drake’s request. Learn more about both men and their difficult alliance below.
1. Drake Has Long Cited Kanye West As One of His Biggest Musical Influences
From the moment Drake exploded onto the scene with 2009’s So Far Gone, he made it clear that West was a huge influence. “Before I ever got the chance to meet him, Kanye West shaped a lot of what I do, as far as music goes,” he told MTV News. “We always, always, always took the time to listen to Kanye’s music and appreciate it beyond. We searched the samples and we find out where his inspiration came from, because he has one of the best ears in music, period. He knows how to recognize great music that’s not his.”
“He knows how to utilize great sounds and great music,” Drake added. “So before I met him, I had the utmost respect for Kanye West. I’d even go as far as to say he’s the most influential person as far as a musician that I’d ever had in my life.” Drake would go on to rap over the instrumental for West’s “Say You Will”, which he had released the year before, and West even directed the music video for Drake’s breakout single “Best I Ever Had.”
Ironically, it is the instrumental for “Say You Will”, retitled “Say Whats Real”, that led to the current Twitter beef playing out between the two artists. Drake sent a sample clearance request for the track, which many believe is an indicator that he was planning to release So Far Gone on streaming platforms for the mixtape’s tenth anniversary. Given West’s denial, however, it doesn’t appear as though Drake will be successful.
2. West & Drake Were Supposed to Release a Collaborative Album In 2017
West and Drake have collaborated several times over the years on the remix to Big Sean’s “Blessings” and an early version of “Pop Life”, but it wasn’t until 2017’s “Glow” that a track made it onto one of their official releases. The track came hot on the heels of reports that West and Drake had been holed up at West’s Calabasas home working on a full length album together.
Tentatively titled There Goes the Neighborhood, the album ultimately fell through after Drake made some choice remarks about West to DJ Semtex. “I don’t know, I think everybody has their own little things going on, I’m not really sure what he’s referring to half the time,” Drake admitted. “I went from being… like working on a project with him, to him sorta publicly sh*tting on me and DJ Khaled for being on the radio too much. But yeah I’m not really sure, everybody’s got their own thing going on.”
There were even reports that the lead single to the West and Drake album would premiere at the Yeezy Season 5 Fashion Show on February 15, 2017, but no such track was released. Their last collaboration was on West’s album ye, where Drake received a songwriting credit on the track “Yikes.”
3. Drake Accused West of Betraying Him & Leaking Info About His Illegitimate Son
The world was shocked when Pusha T, the current president of West’s label G.O.O.D. Music, released the diss track “The Story of Adidon” earlier this year. The track took aim at Drake’s lyrical ability, but most shocking of all was the revelation that he had fathered a child with a former stripper and had been keeping the child’s existence a secret.
The fallout was swift, but when Drake appeared on LeBron James’ HBO series The Shop, he claims that West was the one who leaked the information. “[Kanye] sold me on this whole speech, like, ‘I’m in a great place, I’m making money, I’m a father,” the rapper said. “I wanna be Quincy Jones and help you, but in order to do that, you gotta be transparent with me and you gotta play me your music and tell me when you’re dropping, and I know you don’t like to do that.’ I was in the studio and I guess we all felt a genuine vibe from it.”
“I knew something was gonna come up about my kid,” Drake added. “They had to add the deadbeat dad thing to make it more appealing, which is fine. The mom and dad thing… Whatever. You don’t even know my family.” Drake also revealed that he had told West about plans to release his album Scorpion in July before West announced that he would be releasing five albums with various G.O.O.D. Music artists during the same month.
4. West Exploded on IG After Reports That Drake Slept With His Wife Kim Kardashian
The strained relationship between West and Drake was pushed even further when rumors surfaced that Drake had bedded West’s current wife Kim Kardashian. Some even went as far as to suggest that the “KiKi” referred to in Drake’s hit single “In My Feelings” was actually Kardashian. While Drake has not spoken on these rumors, West didn’t take kindly to them, and on September 20, he took to Instagram to let off steam.
“The fact that it’s people making rumors or thinking that you f*cked my wife and you not saying nothing and you carrying it like that. That don’t sit well with my spirit,” West said in the Instagram video. “You know if I had a girlfriend from Chicago, her name was Ranita, and then you was married to Rihanna. I wouldn’t make no song called named ‘RiRi.’”
West also insisted that he did not leak the information about Drake’s child to Pusha T. “So when you’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t know where it came from,’ you’re too smart for that, bruh,” he added. “You know where that come from. Don’t make no record with nothing that can be confused. Now I told you, I didn’t tell Pusha no information about your baby, baby mama, nothing like that. That ain’t come from me.”
5. West Has Now Said That Drake Demands Him an Apology for His Behavior
Following the request to clear the “Say You Will” sample, West went on a Twitter rant claiming that Drake still owes him an apology over the things he’s said about him. “It’s all love bro bro but don’t play with me,” he wrote on Twitter. “You stay too close to be playing all these industry games bro.” West went on to tweet: “Sending purple emojis When I’m dealing with mental sh*t I need my apologies now. Not through Scooter either Not through Travis.”
Roughly an hour after the initial rush of tweets, West updated fans regarding the situation with Drake. “Drake finally called,” he wrote, “Mission accomplished.” This has many believing that the rapper received the apology he was seeking out. Either way, West insisted that the sample for “Say You Will” won’t be cleared. “By the way… Not cleared”, he wrote, with a laughing emoji.