Drake is one of the biggest artists of all time,
and he’s not afraid of beefing with other rappers.
The whole world went crazy after he went for Meek Mill’s neck back in 2015.
But when Drake started beefing with Pusha T,
the situation got so wild
that some OGs in the game allegedly had to step in so nobody got killed!
Here’s what went down.
A lot of hip hop fans think the Drake and Pusha beef started around 2012,
but the situation actually goes all the way back to 2002.
Back then, Pusha and his brother No Malice
was a duo who went by Clipse
and a lot of their production was handled by Pharrell Williams
and Chad Hugo, AKA The Neptunes.
Birdman featured Clipse on his track What Happened to That Boy
and the Neptunes produced it,
but there were some money issues between Birdman and the Neptunes -
and Pharrell never worked with Cash Money again.
Four years later, Lil Wayne allegedly asked Pharrell for some clothes
from his Billionaire Boys Club brand
but Pharrell shut it down.
Pharrell and Clipse were also known for rocking BAPE before anyone else in the game.
So after Wayne wore BAPE on the cover of Vibe magazine
and rocked Billionaire Boys Club merch in the video for his track Hustler Musik,
Clipse dropped the track Mr. Me Too and called out dudes copying their style.
Wayne clapped back in an interview with Complex.
He talked about Pharrell and said
“That n**** wore BAPEs and y’all thought he was weird.
I wore it and y’all thought it was hot.”
Pusha and Wayne sent shots back and forth,
but it was never nothing too serious.
In 2011 Drake dropped the track Dreams Money Can Buy
and allegedly took shots at Pusha with the lines
“And I feel like lately, it went from top five to remaining five
My favorite rappers either lost it or they ain’t alive.”
Drake has talked about being a Clipse fan back in the day,
so a lot of fans thought this bar was aimed at Pusha.
Pusha responded by using the Dreams Money Can Buy beat
on his track "Don’t F*** With Me".
One bar says “Rappers on their sophomores, actin’ like they boss lords,”
and fans linked it to Drake since he had just dropped his sophomore album.
Then Pusha allegedly sent more shots on the track Exodus 23:1, where he said
“Contract all f***** up,
I guess that means you all f****** up
You signed to one N**** that signed to another n****
That’s signed to three n****s now that’s bad luck.”
Drake was signed to Lil Wayne’s Young Money label,
under Birdman’s Cash Money label,
which is under Universal records -
so a lot of fans thought the line was aimed at him.
It could’ve been a shot at Wayne too, since his contract was just as complicated.
Pusha said the bar wasn’t about Wayne or YMCMB,
but after the track dropped Wayne tweeted “F*** pusha t and anybody that love em.”
For the next few years,
Pusha and Drake allegedly sent some sneak disses at each other
but nothing too wild.
Then in 2016, the beef really started heating up.
Pusha called Drake out for using ghost- -writers on the track H.G.T.V. with the line
“It’s too far gone when the realest ain’t real
I walk amongst the clouds so your ceilings ain’t real
These n****s Call of Duty cause their killings ain’t real
With a questionable pen so the feelin’ ain’t real.”
Drake clapped back on Two Birds, One Stone
and said Pusha wasn’t really pushing weight like he raps about.
He said “But really it’s you with all the drug dealer stories
That’s gotta stop though,
You made a couple chops and now you think you Chapo.”
Pusha waited a couple of years to respond,
but he came back heavy on the track Infrared.
He aired Drake out again for allegedly hiring Quentin Miller to write his verse
on the track R.I.C.O. back in 2015 rapping
“The game’s f***** up N****s’ beats is bangin’,
n****, ya hooks did it
The lyric pennin’ equal the Trumps winnin’
The question is how the Russians did it
It was written like Nas, but it came from Quentin.”
Drake clapped back less than 24 hours later.
He decided to take the situation to the next level on Duppy Freestyle.
He sent shots at Kanye, then went after Pusha with
“Must’ve had your Infrared wrong, now your head in the beam
Y’all are the spittin’ image of whatever jealousy breeds
Don’t push me when I’m in album mode
You’re not even top 5 as far as your label talent goes.”
He also challenged Pusha’s street cred again with
“Man, you might’ve sold to college kids for Nike and Mercedes
But you act like you sold drugs for Escobar in the 80s.”
Drake addressed the Quentin Miller situation too
and said that he was just trying to help the dude make it in the industry
because he was working at Kroger when he met him.
At the end of the track,
Drake says he’s gonna send Kanye an invoice for the clout he gave Pusha
by beefing with him.
Pusha tweeted “Send the invoice for the extra 20…”
and Drake actually followed through and posted a $100K invoice on Instagram
for “Promotional assistance and career reviving.”
Then Drake’s homegirl and label mate Nicki Minaj
hopped in to defend him over the ghostwriting situation.
She tweeted “N****z gon run that Quentin s*** in the f**** ground
like Drake don’t write 4 himself & OTHERS!
Ya enemies will remix, reinvent & TRY 2 make (you) RELIVE some old shit for YEARS 2 come
when they have NOTHING ON (you)!
Knock it off.
Challenging the chosen ones only awakens the sleeping giant.”
Duppy Freestyle was a tough diss track,
and a lot of fans were already saying Drake won.
But what happened next
shocked the whole world and made this beef legendary!
On May 29th, 2018,
Pusha dropped The Story of Adidon.
The artwork was a picture from 2008 of Drake wearing blackface,
which would’ve been a bomb all by itself -
but Pusha really went for the kill with the lyrics.
He started off the track by going after Drake’s mom Sandi and his dad with the bar
“You mention wedding ring like it’s a bad thing
Your father walked away at five hell of a dad thing
Marriage is somethin’ that Sandi never had, Drake
How you a winner but she keep comin’ in last place?”
There was a lot of things fans thought Pusha would talk about on the track,
but nobody expected what came next.
It’s hard to keep secrets when you’re as famous as Drake,
but Pusha dropped a bomb
and broke the news that Drake had a son with an ex porn star named Sophie Brussaux
that he was hiding from the world!
He said “You are hiding a child,
let that boy come home
Deadbeat motha***** playin’ border patrol.”
Keeping your child out of the spotlight ain’t a bad thing,
but Pusha says Drake was just waiting to announce his son
at the same time his new Adidas line launched.
After the track dropped,
Pusha went on the Breakfast Club
and said that Drake was going to name the line AdiDon after his son Adonis.
Pusha ended track by going after Drake’s homie and producer OVO 40 with the lines
“OVO 40, hunched over like he 80 - tick, tick, tick
How much time he got? That man is sick, sick, sick
I got the devil flow, n**** - six, six, six
Surgical summer with it - snip, snip, snip.”
40 was diagnosed with a condition called multiple sclerosis
that causes numbness, tremors, and bad posture.
And Pusha proved that nobody was safe with these bars.
Drake’s Duppy Freestyle was hard,
but after the Story of Adidon dropped it was like a bomb went off!
Fans were waiting for Drake to respond,
but instead he hopped on Instagram to talk about the blackface picture.
He wrote a long message about how the picture was from when he was an actor,
and that it was supposed to represent how “African Americans
were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment,”
and “to highlight and raise our frustrations
with not always getting a fair chance in the industry.”
Fans were worried that since the beef was so personal,
someone could end up getting killed.
But the CEO of Rap-A-Lot Records J. Prince
said he called Drake to end the situation before it got worse.
He told DTLR Radio
"I made an OG call to Drake this morning,
telling him, 'I don't want you to respond to this.
We're going to put this to bed.
We're going to put this to bed because we can't get into the pigpen with pigs.
Because pigs turn into hogs and hogs get slaughtered."
Drake ain’t drop another diss,
but he allegedly put out a $100K bounty for any info he could use against Pusha!
Rumors were flying that Kanye is the one who told Push about Drake’s son,
but Pusha went on Joe Budden’s podcast and broke the news
that the info came from inside Drake’s camp.
He said “40 is sleeping with a woman... He talks to her daily.
Five, six hours a day...
and ultimately speaks about how he's disgruntled about certain things:
Notoriety and things involving Drake,
and his career, and so on and so forth.
With that also came the fact that Drake has a child.
With that also came the trip that everybody took to go see the child and bring him gifts,
and all of this information.
She divulged this information.”
After the Story of Adidon, the beef cooled off.
Then in April 2022,
a Jack Harlow song leaked where Drake allegedly sent shots at Pusha.
One of Drake’s lines on the track says
“All I hear is plug talk comin’ from middleman
All I hear is tall tales comin’ from little men
If I see ya, I spit in ya faces, ha-tu
Daytonas with the green faces.”
Fans started going crazy because they thought the beef was back on,
but Pusha went on the Breakfast Club and said it sounded like an old verse
and that it wasn’t worth responding to.
He said "Then it’s like, even what is the considered, like, the shots.
It’s like, bro, after what I’ve done,
like the 'middleman’ talk and all that type of talk.
That’s not, like, that's not scathing for me.
I’m here to, like, burn down everything."
After Kanye and Drake squashed their beef,
rumors started going around that Pusha was cool with Drake too.
But Pusha told the Breakfast Club
“I felt like it was good for them.
I feel like that’s gon’ work for them and what they do.
I don’t really stand anything to gain from squashing anything.
They playing an industry game I’m not entertaining it,
but there’s nothing I want from the situation.
I don’t want to do a record, I don’t want to do none of that.”
For now it looks like the beef is basically dead,
but Pusha still ain’t trying to link up and be homies with Drake.
If something happens and they double back,
Pusha says he’s ready for anybody, anytime.
He told the Breakfast Club
“I got a file of just fire for whatever.
That’s for everything, that’s for the world.
There’s a file cabinet full of death.”