From an Instagram model who claimed without evidence that she had a tryst with him, to the
alleged assault of another rapper at Coachella, Canadian rapper Drake has his share of enemies.
Virginia rapper Pusha T and Drake have been archenemies pretty much since
Drake's music career really took off. These two have been accused of taking
subliminal shots at each other in songs since the early 2010s,
but things came to a head in 2018, when Pusha dissed Drake on his cut "Infrared." Basically,
he brought up an accusation that's plagued Drake for some time: that he allegedly uses ghostwriters
and specifically hired rapper Quentin Miller to help him write lyrics. Drake swiftly responded
to Pusha on his song "Duppy Freestyle," mentioning his foe's now-wife and saying,
"Look, holla at me when you multi-million / I told you
keep playin' with my name / And I'ma let it ring on you like Virginia Williams."
Pusha later responded on "The Story of Adidon," where he not only made
light of Drake's friend and producer, Noah Shebib, having multiple sclerosis,
but also doubled down on his ghostwriting claims and revealed that Drake had a secret child,
son Adonis. During a 2019 interview with Rap Radar, Drake addressed the feud,
saying he had no interest in ever fixing things with Pusha. Drake said of the feud,
"I was changing as a person. [...] It's just not a fun life
when you have to just look over your shoulder all the time. [...] It's not
a good way to live. In that particular situation that you're talking about,
no, I have no desire to ever mend anything with that person. There is no turning back."
The relationship between Kanye West and Drake has been through a lot. At first,
Drake was a huge fan of the Chicago rapper. Plus, it was once said they were working on a joint
album together. The album never surfaced ... but a major crack in the rappers' relationship did.
It happened in November 2016 at the Sacramento stop of West's "Saint Pablo Tour," when Ye seemed
to complain about the radio always playing Drake songs. Drake told DJ Semtex in 2017,
"I went from being like working on a project with him,
to him sorta publicly s----ing on me and DJ Khaled for being on the radio too much."
Once Pusha T released "The Story of Adidon" the following year, Drake and West's relationship was
essentially caput. On LeBron James' HBO show, The Shop, Drake later accused West of leaking
the secret child info to Pusha after Drake played Ye "March 14," a song about fatherhood.
"I'm in Wyoming, I play him 'March 14. I send him a picture of my son."
However, West previously denied the allegation while speaking to Chicago's 107.5 WGCI.
"So you didn't give Pusha T the information?"
"No, I didn't."
While Rap-A-Lot Records co-founder J. Prince managed to get the rappers
together in 2021 at the Free Larry Hoover Benefit Concert,
Drake and West still don't seem to be friendly with each other these days.
iLoveMakonnen's career was on a serious upward trajectory after dropping his hit
song "Tuesday" in 2014. The California native then elevated higher once Drake jumped on the
"Tuesday" remix and appeared in the video. After that, he inked a deal with Drake's
record label OVO Sound. Any logical person would probably assume the rapper-singer would be making
more songs with Drake and become a longtime OVO flag waver — but the opposite occurred,
with their relationship crumbling, and iLoveMakonnen leaving OVO.
At first, in a statement shared by XXL in April 2016, iLoveMakonnen said there wasn't
a beef between himself and Drake, but a freestyle on "Tim Westwood TV" that June
changed that. Using profanity, ILoveMakonnen essentially said that he didn't drop the label.
Shedding more light on the mysterious situation in a 2017 interview with Fader, iLoveMakonnen
alleged that Drake and his crew threatened him at an MTV VMAs afterparty in New York City the
previous September, which he believed was over the freestyle. iLoveMakonnen said,
"I was threatened by others. Someone I so-called look up to,
saying, 'We gon f--k you up the next time we see you. When I'm rapping,
people think I'm throwing shots. I ain't rapped no names! All I did was rap!"
Drake has yet to publicly respond.
In 2015, DRAM had a hit song on his hands with "Cha Cha," but he'd probably say its
success was bittersweet. That has to do with the Virginia singer publicly
accusing Drake of stealing the song to make his cut "Hotline Bling," due to the
admitted similarities between the two tunes. DRAM tweeted,
"Yeah, I feel I got jacked for my record...But I'm GOOD."
For his part, Drake told Fader he'd simply been inspired by "Cha Cha's" beat. However,
DRAM later claimed to The Breakfast Club that the success of "Hotline
Bling" hurt "Cha Cha" from taking off even more.
"But did Drake kill your record? Did it hurt your record when he put it up?"
"Yeah, yeah, it really did."
Now, let's fast forward to 2017, because something major went down
between the two when they saw each other at Coachella: DRAM was allegedly assaulted by
Drake's crew. Drake was silent about the supposed altercation in the beginning,
but he mentioned the claims in his 2022 collaboration with Lil Yachty, saying,
"Tried to bring the drama to me / He ain't know how we cha-cha slide."
Later, DRAM spoke to TMZ and gave more details of the alleged Coachella incident, recalling,
"He was DJing at a party. I approached him. [...] Like, 'Hey bro, we need to
talk.' [...] We stepped outside, it was like a whole army of like 15-some guys."
Charlamagne tha God has often been very critical of Drake and his music. Like in 2013,
when he complained to VladTV that Drake was apparently far too emotional. Two years later,
Charlamagne tha God told VladTV in a separate interview that the Canadian
rapper apparently went looking for him in Houston to confront him.
"Like it's been certain places Drake has come looking for me."
Also in 2015, Drake alluded to Charlamagne's continued criticism in his Meek Mill diss song
"Back to Back." In short, Drake admitted that his back-and-forth with Mill caused him to act
out of character, so he promised via rap to extend an olive branch and buy Charlamagne
some bottles of champagne. Drake then lived up to his promise by delivering six bottles to him.
But that doesn't mean Drake seems all that fond of the New York radio personality,
especially after Charlamagne talked about being unenthused about the rapper's then-forthcoming
"Certified Lover Boy" album. Charlamagne said on his podcast, The Brilliant Idiots,
"Drake has given us so much music that I don't know if he has another gear. So therefore,
I'm not looking forward to anything. [...] Let me ask y'all a question:
'Are we still in the Drake era?'"
In December 2022, Canadian rapper Tory Lanez was convicted of assault with a semiautomatic firearm,
having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and discharging a firearm with gross
negligence. These three felony charges, for which Lanez faces over 20 years behind bars,
are related to an incident in which the rapper shot Megan Thee Stallion in her feet in July 2020.
"Rapper Tory Lanez has been charged with shooting artist Megan Thee Stallion during an argument."
While Lanez was ultimately found guilty, there were some — particularly in the rap
game — who didn't believe Megan Thee Stallion's accusation. Based on a couple of lines delivered
on the November 2022 song "Circo Loc," one of those people seemed to be Drake. He rapped,
"This b---h lie 'bout gettin' shots,
but she still a stallion / She don't even get the joke, but she still smiling."
He appeared to come down on her music, as well, saying,
"Shorty say she graduated, she ain't learn enough / Play your album,
track one, 'kay, I heard enough."
While Drake was blasted by many for these lines, Megan Thee Stallion also
responded to the apparent digs in a series of tweets, writing in part,
"Stop using my shooting for clout. Since when [...] is it cool to joke
abt women getting shot! [...] Ready to boycott bout shoes and clothes but dog
pile on a black woman when she say one of y'all homeboys abused her."
Drake clearly had a few things to get off his chest on the "Her Loss" album. Apart
from seemingly dissing Megan Thee Stallion, he was also accused of taking a dig at Bronx
rapper Ice Spice. While one could argue that those insults possibly weren't aimed at the two women,
considering Drake didn't say their names, the same can't be said for Serena Williams' husband,
Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit. Indeed,
Drake made it clear exactly who he was referring to on the song "Middle of the Ocean," rapping,
"Sidebar, Serena, your husband a groupie / He claim we don't got a problem but / No, boo, it
is like you comin' for sushi / We might pop up on 'em at will like Suzuki."
The lyric could have to do with the fact that Serena and Drake supposedly dated for
a short time back in the day. For her part, Williams stayed mum about the groupie line.
"Honestly, I just live my life."
However, Ohanian immediately responded on Twitter,
though he appeared to suggest that Drake's claims didn't bother him all that much. He tweeted,
"The reason I stay winning is because I'm relentless about being the absolute best
at whatever I do — including being the best groupie for my wife & daughter."
Drake hasn't flat-out said that he dislikes Kendrick Lamar — but for years,
it's been rumored that these fan-favorite rappers don't care all that much for each
other. That's despite the two collaborating on Lamar's 2012 song "Poetic Justice." Much
of the beef talk started the following year, after people heard Lamar's verse
on Big Sean's "Control," a song in which the California native called out several rappers,
saying he'll destroy them at the rap game. Drake, as you may have guessed, was one of
the artists mentioned, and he was accused of responding on his 2013 song "The Language."
When Drake spoke about the cut with Vibe, however,
he explained that it was only partially inspired by "Control." He told Vibe,
"'The Language' is just energy. What it was inspired by, I'm sure that, and other things.
It's just me talking my s--t. I never once felt the need to respond to that record. [...] Where
it became an issue is that I was rolling out an album while that verse was still bubbling,
so my album rollout became about this thing. [...] I also stood my ground as I should."
Despite Drake calling Lamar a "king" at his OVO Fest in 2014,
the two have since been accused of sending more subliminal shots
at each other in their lyrics, with talk of their apparent beef continuing.
In an interview with Power 106 Los Angeles, however,
Lamar described hip-hop as a game and said that he wrote the verse for fun.
"Personally, I respect these dudes as people." It's probably safe to assume that Drake doesn't
like an influencer named Treeshiana all that much. In December 2022, she hopped onto her Instagram
Stories and made some surprising claims about an alleged romantic tryst. She said in the video,
"Last month, Drake had flew me out. So I had made a video and I posted it on my
Instagram Story. It was a video of me inside of a purple lingerie set. And I had tagged Drake."
"So he had texted me and was like,
'What's your number?' with the heart eyes emoji, so I sent my number."
From there, Treeshiana claimed that the two chatted for a while
before Drake purchased a plane ticket and invited her to his home three days later,
where she reportedly signed an NDA, he supposedly asked whether she wanted kids,
and they allegedly engaged in unprotected sex. However, the social media star then
alleged that the rapper kicked her out after she tried to record him in bed.
Of course, Drake could've just ignored Treeshiana's allegations,
which might've made the story go away. But there was something that apparently
got under his skin about her claims, and he sent a message on his own Instagram Story, writing,
"Never met. Never spoke. Never flew. I hope people
start doing more with the one life we are given. S--t is sad out here."