Rap is a competitive genre.
So it’s common for rappers who are at the same level
to send shots at each other in their music – even the superstars.
Here is a look at a few hidden sneak disses in rap music.
“I crept down the block
made a right
cut the lights
Paid the price
N**** think its sweet
it’s on sight
nothin nice
Baguettes in my ice
Jesus Christ
Checks over stripes"
Drake – Sicko Mode
Although Drake is far from the toughest rapper in the game,
he’s held his spot through his fair share of beef.
Many have speculated that in this verse,
the rapper is throwing shots at another one of the biggest artists in the game,
Kanye West.
Drake and Kanye have had a long and complicated relationship.
Ye paved the way for Drake’s career,
by shifting the sound of rap to include more melodies and pop elements.
But as Drake’s career has skyrocketed
and he began to pass his former idol,
their relationship would get more and more sour.
Drake and Kanye have known each other for years.
Ye produced several tracks on Drake’s debut studio album
Thank Me Later, including the smash hit
Find Your Love,
which he co-produced with Jeff Bhasker and No ID.
He also directed the music video
for another one of Drake’s breakout singles
Best I Ever Had.
Early on, Drake told the press that he idolized Kanye
and he was probably his single biggest musical inspiration.
But even from day one,
Kanye felt that Drake was possibly his greatest competition
for the title of hottest rapper in the game.
This friendly rivalry inspired him to go as hard as possible
to prevent the crown from being taken.
Ye has admitted that Drake was a big reason
why he decided to team up with Jay-Z for the Watch the Throne album.
Drake had been teasing a possible collaborative album with Wayne,
and Ye felt that the two of them together
would be impossible to match without another rap heavyweight like Jay.
But up until then,
it was all just healthy competition.
In 2013, Kanye dropped his sixth studio album Yeezus,
which some fans loved, and others hated.
The same year,
Drake hopped on the remix to the Migos song Versace
where he dropped the bar
“I do not f*** your new shit, my n****
Don’t ask me my take on it”,
which many assumed was aimed at Kanye.
Drake later did an interview
where he admitted that he wasn’t feeling Yeezus
as much as Ye’s early work and felt it had some
“questionable bars”.
But both denied that there was any real beef
and claimed that the blogs and magazines
were just trying to pit them against each other for clicks.
In 2015,
Kanye did an interview with the Breakfast Club
where he hinted that he and Drake may be working on a joint album called Wolves.
Kanye also claimed that Drake was one of the only artists
he felt he was in competition with
and he was pushed by him to step his game up.
But while Kanye would be defending his title
by trying to keep his rival under his wing,
Drake would continue sending subliminal shots in his music.
On the track Summer Sixteen Drake rapped
“I used to wanna be on Roc-a-fella
then I turned into Jay
Now I got a house in LA
Now I got a bigger pool than Ye
And look man Ye’s pool is nice
Mine’s just bigger is what I’m sayin.”
The bar was clearly just a petty shot for the sake of competition.
But to someone with an ego as big as Kanye,
Drake claiming to have a bigger pool clearly got into his head.
Not long after that,
Drake released a track called Pop Style
with a guest appearance from the Throne –
Jay and Kanye’s rap group.
But the version that eventually made it to Drake’s 2016 album Views,
featured a new verse from Drake
in place of the Jay and Kanye features.
During that time,
Drake was still in the middle of his beef with Meek Mill.
Kanye later claimed that Jay didn’t want to be on the track out of respect for Meek.
But others speculated that there was more going on behind the scenes.
At OVO Fest later that year,
Kanye again teased a possible collaborative album with Drake.
Then a mysterious billboard with the phrase
“Calabasas is the New Abu Dhabi”
along with the OVO and GOOD Music symbols popped up in LA,
leading many to believe that the collab album might actually happen.
But not long after that
Kanye would start going on his now- famous rants at the Life of Pablo Tour,
where he called out everyone from Drake and DJ Khaled to his former mentor Jay-Z.
During one rant,
he asked the audience whether it seemed like Drake and DJ Khaled’s recent single For Free
was being played on the radio way too much.
Drake told the press he was confused about Kanye’s rant.
He was said he was just working on a collaborative project with Ye
and then the next minute he’s dissing him live on stage.
But there still wasn’t any real beef between them,
just growing tension.
Then, their relationship would change forever
after the recording session for Kanye’s 8th studio album Ye, in Wyoming.
In an interview with LeBron James,
Drake says that he attended the recording session,
but the whole time he felt like something was off.
He had recently announced the release date for his next studio album Scorpion,
which was set to be released in early June 2018.
While Drake was in Wyoming,
he claims that Ye pressured him to reveal certain top-secret information,
including when he planned to release his album.
He also told Kanye about the recent birth of his son Adonis,
which he had not revealed to the public.
Not long after Drake left the session,
Kanye went on a Twitter rant
and announced that he and other members of the GOOD Music camp
would be releasing a series of seven-song albums,
beginning at the end of May leading into early June
- right around the time that Drake was supposed to drop.
The first album in the series was Pusha T’s Daytona,
which featured several disses aimed at Drake and Wayne.
The beef between Push and Cash Money
goes back to at least 2002.
Before venturing out as a solo artist,
Pusha T was known as one-half of the rap group Clipse,
along with his brother Malice
who is now known as No Malice.
In 2002, Baby and Wayne jumped onto a remix of their hit track Grindin’.
The Clipse was also featured on the Birdman song
What Happened to that Boy,
which was produced by the Neptune’s.
Birdman – who has a history of not paying artists,
producers or anyone one he does business with
– never paid Pharrell for the beat.
After that Pharrell vowed that he would never work with Cash Money ever again.
Pharrell was Push’s go-to producer,
so he naturally took his side in the beef.
He and Wayne would begin to send subtle shots at each other.
Drake also joined in on the beef
to defend his mentor
so he and Push have had issues ever since.
In 2012,
Pusha T dropped the track Exodus 23:1 where he rapped
“You signed to one n****
that signed to another n****
That’s signed to three n****,
now that’s bad luck”,
making fun of the way that the Cash Money label is structured.
Drake is signed to Wayne,
who is signed to Birdman
through a partnership with Universal.
This is what makes their deals so complicated
and the reason that Wayne has had such a hard time getting paid royalties in the past –
because the money has to pass through so many different hands before it gets to him.
Wayne responded on Twitter by saying
“Fuck Pusha T and anybody that love em”,
followed by his own diss track Ghoulish.
This was the moment that the beef went from sneak disses to direct shots
and ever since then, Push has had problems with anyone associated with Cash Money.
On Daytona, Pusha T sent some shots at Drake
on the track Infrared, where he rapped
“It was written like Nas
But it came from Quentin
at the mercy of a game
where the culture’s missing”.
This bar was a reference to the ghost-writing allegations
that sparked the beef between Drake and Meek Mill back in 2016.
Quentin Miller is a rapper and songwriter
who wrote some of Drake’s verses on his 2015 mixtape
If You’re Reading This It's Too Late.
Meek exposed the fact
that Drake used a ghostwriter
and even though many fans believe that Drake won that beef,
the allegations have had an impact on his credibility as a rapper.
Drake responded to Push
with his own diss track Duppy Freestyle,
but had more to say for Ye than he did for Push.
On the track he rapped
“What do you really think of the n**** making your beats
I’ve done things for him I thought that he never would need
Father had to stretch his hands out and get it from me
I pop style for 30 minutes then let him repeat
Now you poppin up with the jokes,
I’m dead I’m asleep”.
But Pusha T’s response was far more vicious
than Drake probably ever imagined
and the track that followed
remains one of the most brutal diss tracks in hip hop history.
The Story of Adidon
featured Push rapping over the beat from The Story of OJ off Jay-Z’s 4:44 album.
The cover art was a picture of Drake in full blackface,
from back when he was a teenage actor.
But that wasn’t even the most shocking part.
On the track Pusha raps
“You are hiding a child
let that boy come home
Dead beat m********
playing border patrol.”.
Push was referring to Drake’s son Adonis.
Sophie Brussaux, a retired porn star,
had given birth to him earlier that year
and Drake was the father.
The rapper had yet to release the news about his child to the public,
so the lyrics came as a major shock.
On the track, Pusha also dissed Drake’s producer 40,
who suffers from multiple sclerosis,
and took a few other brutal shots at the rapper and his team.
Drake claims that he wrote a response,
but at the last minute decided not to release it
after speaking with one of his mentors,
hip hop legend J Prince.
But, Drake also says
that he played the track March 14th for Kanye in Wyoming
a song where he rapped about the birth of his son.
He also says that he told Ye about his struggles with his son’s mother
and that he believed that Ye gave this info to Push for The Story of Adidon.
Drake’s fifth studio album Scorpion
was released on June 29th, 2018,
and contains several subliminal shots aimed at Kanye.
Even though Push is really the one who came for his throat,
he seemed more disappointed in his former idol than his enemy.
With disses like
“meeting all my heroes
like seeing how magic work
The people I look up to
are goin from bad to worse”
and
“who grips the mic
and like to kill they friends”,
it seemed like Drake was announcing that his friendship with Kanye was officially over.
Meanwhile, Ye denied the claim that he leaked the information about Drake’s son.
Push also went on the Joe Budden Podcast
and claimed that Ye was not the source of the information.
Instead, the info came from a woman that 40 was dating,
who was also cool with people in his camp.
In July of 2018,
Drake released the track In My Feelings,
which sparked an internet rumor
that the rapper was admitting to having an affair
with Kanye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian.
The chorus of the track is
“Kiki do you love me?”.
KiKi was Kim’s childhood name,
while her sister Chloe had the name Koko.
Media outlets later revealed
that Drake was actually talking about model Kyanna Barber,
but he never denied the rumors about Kim.
Even Snoop Dogg joined in on the conversation
and clowned Kanye for getting trolled by Drake
after the rapper slept with his wife.
I just found out who KiKi was
KiKi is your *****
That's why you're so mad
Cuz Drake put **** in your *****
He did huh?
Drake you a cold ***** cuz
I liked that song
But I ain't know why I liked it
I really like it now
KiKi
Do you love me?
Remember sucking me
*unintelligible*
Yeah he put **** in your *****
How bout that?
Finally, Kanye himself addresses the lyrics in a video on social media
where he called out Drake
for failing to deny the rumors
that he slept with Kim.
Thought that had the where with all to say
Hey Pusha don't diss Drake
on my beat.
and I-
and I spoke about that
and took accountability for that
now what I need,
what I'm looking for
for my spirit to take accountability is
the fact that there's people
making rumors
or thinking that
you ****** my wife
and you not saying nothing and you carrying Iit like that
that don't sit well with my spirit
Then, in August 2018,
Travis Scott released the track Sicko Mode,
which featured a guest appearance from Drake.
Many believed he was continuing to throw shots at Ye
by suggesting he had an affair with Kim.
People took note
that Ye and Drake live right down the road from each other in Calabasas.
When you look on Google maps,
you can literally head down the block and take a right
to get to Kim and Kanye’s house from Drakes,
which is what he raps on the song.
Probably the biggest piece of evidence
is the fact that he says
“checks over stripes",
referring to Nike over Adidas.
Kanye’s Yeezy brand is sponsored by Adidas
and Ye has had problems with Nike
ever since the beginning of the partnership.
He even released a diss track aimed at the brand
called Facts on his Life of Pablo album.
Since then, the beef between Drake and Kanye has slowed down.
They have yet to make up publicly,
but they haven’t taken any shots at each other in a while.
Kanye has been more preoccupied with his presidential campaign,
divorcing his wife and now barricading himself
in Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium
to finish his upcoming album Donda.
But at this point,
it seems unlikely
that the world will ever get to hear a Drake and Kanye collab album.
Whether or not Drake actually had an affair with Kim,
or he was just trolling
because he knew it would get to Ye is hard to tell.
Fans will just have to wait and see