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The State of Drake in 2024 | Crossing Over: From Rap Underdog to Pop Villain | “We Might Just Get Hit With The RICO”: Drake’s Self-View As A Smooth Criminal | iLoveMakonnen | Mo G | XXXTentacion | Was This Always The Plan?
In Part 1 of this series, Drake’s international and interethnic culture-hopping was the primary focus in exploring accusations of culture vulturism against him. Four years later, the following assertions remain valid:
- Drake’s background has more cultural touchpoints than the general Western public recognizes
- Drake’s interactions with cultures beyond Toronto demonstrate relationship building, deep research, and appropriate usage in his work
- Drake is not responsible for the continued success of all of his collaborators
That being said, Part 1’s greatest flaws lie in what was not addressed.
While Part 1 acknowledged key arguments for the view of Drake as a culture vulture, it did not examine them with the same rigor as arguments defending Drake from culture vulture allegations. Among his other ties to regional music scenes, criticisms of Drake’s key relationship to Houston’s rap scene are more extensive and significant than Part 1 of this series acknowledges. On a related and more important note, Part 1 does not thoroughly explore the business ethics of Drake’s moves in the music industry.
Part 2 will shift focus from Drake’s use of foreign cultural elements to the business practices behind such usage — particularly of regional hip-hop cultures — and Drake’s perspective on his practices as heard in his music. Part 2 will also ask if Drake, an established rapper, can appropriate a culture he belongs to, raising the age-old question “Is Drake hip-hop?”
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The State of Drake in 2024
Hip-hop legend KRS-One has a strong opinion on the difference between an MC and a rapper that captures what Kendrick Lamar and Drake represent: the MC’s focus is community, while the rapper’s focus is commerce.
Despite the mudslinging in their explosive diss track exchange this past May, much of Kendrick’s authority came from speaking on behalf of “the culture” while Drake’s power stance came from his popularity and other rappers’ commercial dependence on him.
We can’t speak in ideals when discussing famous rappers, no matter how principled they may be. Any hip-hop artist on the charts is playing “the game” to some degree, but the glaring differences in how Kendrick and Drake prioritize crossover success helped shape their recent musical grudge match and give hip-hop stakeholders the permission to once again question Drake’s authenticity and integrity all these years later.
Among other angles, Kendrick dedicated a good chunk of the otherwise club-ready “Not Like Us” to a focused, historical view of Drake as a culture vulture, particularly in his interactions with Atlanta’s hip-hop scene. The point Kendrick made about Drake in those 16 bars — that Drake’s greatest exploitation is of other rappers — is arguably more severe than earlier culture vulture accusations leveled against Drake regarding his use of international dialects and lingo.
As discussed in previous ATC entries on Drake’s position in hip-hop, the Toronto rapper further blurs the lines between selling well and selling out by using his pop music dominance as the core subject matter in his rap performances. The extreme to which Drake has taken this angle in competing with other rappers is noteworthy.
Beyond his own monstrous sales figures, the biggest part of Drake’s self-narrative are his power struggle with his label Universal Music Group (UMG), claims of other rappers’ deep envy of him, and the dependence they have on him to sell their own records:
That’s why every song sound like Drake featuring Drake
– Drake, “5 AM in Toronto” (2013)
Brand new Beretta, can’t wait to let it go / Walk up in my label like, ‘Where da check though?’ Yeah I said it
– Drake, “Star 67” (2015)
“Major distribution, man, my label on my dick, for real”
– Drake, “Major Distribution” (2022)
“Bad Bunny numbers, it’s a robbery / Five-hundred million, just for Aubrey”
We already know it’s a 20-v-1, we already know why you went number one / It’s clearly because of The Boy, the honorable thing is to give me the loot
– Drake, “Family Matters” (2024)
Since Drake achieved commercial power, it has been his biggest flex. But his artistic choices and rhetoric in interviews used to communicate a goal of respect and acceptance in hip-hop culture. Nothing Was The Same‘s rap tracks were heavy on samples and homage (e.g. “Wu Tang Forever,” “Tuscan Leather”). Along with the numerous New York hip-hop allusions and the Jay Z-assisted outro, 2013 seemed to be the peak of Drake’s positioning as hip-hop’s valedictorian. It’s also the year he prophesied his own longevity, snidely assuring us “we’ll see who’s still around a decade from now.” To his credit, Drake is still here.
As heard in his music, Drake’s growing frustration with not being seen as a loyal rap scholar led to a shift in his artistry and image, prioritizing pop excellence above all else.
Despite his notorious “softness,” Drake has leaned on his music industry dominance to validate talk of mob ties, head-splitting, and block-spinning. The tough talk is more frequent and audacious as Drake’s music is now largely defined by vengeance, pettiness, misogyny, and anti-social behavior. Funny enough, these developments don’t make Drake much different from other rappers except for the fact he got there largely through his pop exploits — not the streets, and not strictly through hip-hop, but through pop-rap, singing, and meme culture among other mainstream activities.
Between Kendrick Lamar’s lyrical onslaught and patterns in his most recent music, culture vulture allegations against Drake have once again flared up. This time, the focus is on patterns much more meaningful than which accent or slang term he used in his latest single.
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Crossing Over: From Rap Underdog To Pop Villain
I swear that y’all turned me into the villain, I couldn’t escape
– Drake, “8 AM in Charlotte” (2023)
After Nothing Was The Same and the drama of the 2014 GRAMMYs, the narrative of Drake fighting his way into the game was no longer viable. He was much too successful. What has grown since then is the view of Drake as a lofty organized crime boss amongst his musical peers.
Fact and fiction regarding what Drake and OVO do or don’t do is blurry, but the image is based on the very real omnipresence and imperviousness of the Drake brand. Drake achieves this through massive success in pop (his Hot 100 #1 entries are almost all melody-driven) which he has leveraged as the ultimate trump card in his raps. Is anything wrong with this?
Got the Billboard melodies, rap is something I do on the side / Crossed over to the other side, and I didn’t even have to die
– “Big Amount,” 2 Chainz ft. Drake (2016)
The approach is genius and nearly impossible to replicate: win the rap game by winning the pop game. To Drake, rapping is as much of a PR tool to brag about the numbers he’s putting up as it is an art form. This level of boasting — Beatles-level sales and the most lucrative contracts and sponsorships among musical artists — is impossible to compete with for any commercially-driven rapper trying to achieve these things primarily through hip-hop. It’s why Drake is able to get points in a rap beef by making fun of Future for their intentionally corny, radio-friendly collab “Way2Sexy” being his only Hot 100 #1 single.
To many hip-hop listeners, artists, and executives, Drake’s straddling of the hip-hop/pop line is nothing but a generational success story. But there is a strong argument for Drake’s double-dipping as exploitation.
Some version of the Drake-is-not-hip-hop argument has existed since he was signed to YMCMB. And Drake is among the greatest students of hip-hop the culture has seen, shown not only in his technical adaptations but the breadth and depth of his sonic and lyrical references. But Drake’s commitment to hip-hop has too many weak spots to be seen as solid.
First there is Drake’s track record of “wave-riding” defined by heavy-handed flattery of a rising rapper, followed by the “Drake Stimulus Package,” and a swift, usually quiet cutting of ties. Drake’s use of the phrase “my favorite rapper” loses meaning after every instance of it — on Blocboy JB, then Rick Ross, then Kodak Black, and now his latest muse Sexyy Red (she makes the claim for Drake, but he hasn’t refuted it) — a very situational title based on diplomacy and moodiness rather than longstanding values as a rap lover. He treats cities much the same way.
When Drake’s “favorites” fall out of favor with him, their careers are often stunted or effectively ended as Drake chugs along. Similar patterns exist among his mainly R&B OVO signees: talented singer-songwriters like PartyNextDoor and Majid Jordan who contribute greatly to Drake albums, get the occasional Drake verse, and never grow beyond Drake the way “almost-OVO” artists such as The Weeknd and Bryson Tiller have.
Then there’s his years-long, well-documented frustration over his inability to be crowned by critics and rap listeners as the best rapper of his generation. This apparently fueled his pivot into being a proud pop star as seen and heard on social media posts and songs where Drake mocks the idea of making a classic rap album and yearns for hit singles.
As early as 2017, he expressed frustration with being confined to hip-hop awards simply because he is a Black artist who “rapped in the past.” And if none of that makes it clear enough, the “Big Amount” blockquote above is an explicit dismissal — disdain, even — of rap music.
Maybe that’s partly on hip-hop supporters for spending more time on jokes than appreciating what Drake brought to the game in the early 2010s. But what, exactly, is rap to Drake now? A place with a throne to sit on? A high school reunion he attends out of spite? A mineral-rich continent to take from and power his latest products?
Considering the enemies he’s gained over time and the grimy nature of the recorded music industry, there is some truth to the change in Drake’s artistic self-image from hip-hop heir to mob boss disguised as pop star: Drake’s goofy PR contrasts a very shrewd, exploitative music business strategy; many rappers envy Drake’s spot in the game; and Drake is the only hip-hop artist big enough to make UMG talk to him nice.
For a while now, Drake’s music has been unconcerned with critical acclaim. He knows going toe-to-toe with one of the three major US record labels and winning, however that’s defined, is the kind of rare achievement that makes an artist appear invincible.
Niggas ain’t gotta respect / Niggas just gotta accept
-Drake, “Pain 1993” (2020)
The recorded music industry is a racket. It seems to take one to beat one.
“We Might Just Get Hit With The RICO”: Drake’s Self-View As A Smooth Criminal
You think Drake would pull some shit like that? You never knooow
-Drake, “Stay Schemin” (2012)
Drake’s business realities aside, it was never a requirement of him to take on a Don Aubrey image.
Taylor Swift, for example — “the biggest gangster in the music industry” according to Drake himself in “Taylor Made Freestyle” — does not have albums full of songs calling herself Griselda Blanco. So when Drake raps about him and his associates extorting or killing people, what does it accomplish? For one, it blurs lines between what Drake has done, has not done, and is capable of. More concretely, it gives his wealth and pop success — his greatest advantages over other rappers — a street feel.
At its simplest, “street” codes for Black, poor, and aggressive. You can be “hood/nigga rich,” but that label implies someone’s risky money-making ways are rooted in racism-created poverty. That isn’t to say Drake is not Black or, when it comes to his career, aggressive. But as someone with a full basketball court in his Toronto mansion paid for with music money, he gets a pass on saying things like, “He talkin’ down he get put in a lake” (“Daylight”) and, “Thought I was a popstar, I’m Slaughter Gang, I baited ’em” (“More M’s”) because someone like 21 Savage, or Preme, or Future, or Lil Baby is standing next to him.
Doing a collab album with 21 Savage gives Drake’s raps about luxury hotels and multimillion dollar deals a street feel. Adopting UK Drill lingo gives his Calabasas beef with another multimillionaire a street feel, a we-outside feel.
While Drake doesn’t owe other rappers dedicated career support, his signing of reggae/dancehall artist Popcaan and long-term commitment to his Unruly crew make his interactions with trendy street rappers look flirtatious in comparison. Listeners’ expectations of Drake to invest more in the successes of artists like Blocboy JB or Roy Woods or Pressa are brought on by Drake himself through his inflated public praise of younger artists and voluntary partnerships. He is not responsible for the successes of his upstart peers, but the pattern is clear: Drake’s flings with up-and-comers are more about relevance than reverence.
As stated in Part 1, there’s an argument that Drake’s picking and choosing of younger rappers to work with is undoubtedly good because he doesn’t have to give anyone a look. But for every supposedly positive, lasting connection Drake has made with a junior peer (e.g. Lil Yachty, J Hus), a counterexample exists. The instances where Drake’s trendy collabs don’t work out raise a lot of questions and suggest Drake often has exploitative intentions toward other hip-hop artists.
iLoveMakonnen
The brief tenure of Atlanta artist iLoveMakonnen as an OVO signee is one of few publicized stories about a trendy Drake collaboration gone wrong. But despite Drake’s high batting average of mutually beneficial collaborations known to the public, the details and allegations found in iLoveMakonnen’s story support the view of Drake as a musical extortionist.
In a 2017 FADER profile, Makonnen detailed his relationship with Drake and described his time at OVO as “prison.” After receiving the gratuitous praise Drake is known to give potential collaborators, Makonnen signed with OVO and claims his requests for support from the label were routinely denied. He received no production, promotion, or access to other OVO artists. Adding to this, Makonnen states he only ever performed his breakout hit “Tuesday” alongside Drake as a guest at a Drake show as opposed to Drake appearing at one of Makonnen’s shows. Makonnen cites this alleged mistreatment (known as being “shelved“) as a key factor in his creative drought while signed to OVO.
iLoveMakonnen also explained the surprise manner in which Drake jumped on his single “Tuesday” created a power imbalance that saw Makonnen struggling to meet with Drake on Drake’s terms to talk business. Other notable events during iLoveMakonnen’s brief tenure as an OVO artist include the unearthing of Makonnen tweets ridiculing Drake between 2010 and 2013 and Makonnen’s manager pressing OVO for money. Once OVO and iLoveMakonnen cut ties in 2016, Makonnen addressed the situation in a freestyle on British radio host Tim Westwood’s show claiming, “Mothafuckas say I got dropped / You know that’s a mothafuckin’ lie / Only place I dropped is in my goddamn pants size.”
The tension between OVO and iLoveMakonnen boiled over months later in September at an official MTV VMAs afterparty where Drake and affiliates publicly confronted Makonnen. Prior to the FADER interview, Makonnen’s public stance on the event via Twitter was a vague “love and respect for everyone.” According to Makonnen in the FADER story, “I was threatened by others. Someone I so-called look up to. Saying, ‘We gon fuck you up the next time we see you.'” Makonnen stated this event’s negative impact on his self-esteem prompted a social retreat in the following months that led to him coming out as gay.
Mo G
Less than two weeks after an anti-OVO tirade on Instagram over alleged unpaid songwriting fees, Toronto rapper Mo G was pictured bloodied and bruised in a hospital on April Fools’ Day in 2016.
Despite the uncanny timing of it all, there is no evidence for any criminal allegations to be made against Drake and OVO for this series of unfortunate events. What can be discussed, however, are the conditions surrounding Mo G’s apparent assault and possible motivations fueling whoever was responsible.
While no officially released songs came of the link between Somali-Canadian rapper Mo G and Drake, the latter’s public acknowledgement of Mo G in the single “Summer Sixteen” and subsequent studio collaboration is documented.
Circumstances around the assault of Mo G are too messy to make any allegations against OVO. But whether or not Drake put a hit out for Mo G, what remains true is Drake’s massive brand is responsible for maintaining a game — in Toronto and globally — where association with one of few label-backed superstars is a quasi-requirement to ensure long-term success in music (see Taylor Swift’s similarly long list of cosigns and beefs).
I did it all without a Drake feature
-Mac Miller, “Here We Go” (2014)
Outside of OVO, Mo G burned bridges with OVO-affiliated groups in Toronto including Halal Gang (HG) of which he’s a founding member. Halal Gang joined Drake on the European leg of his Boy Meets World tour in 2017 as an unlisted opening act. Mo-G seems to have joined them on that tour, but has dissed Halal Gang members on and off as recently as 2022. Mo’s standing with OVO is unclear at the time of this piece’s publication.
Mo has continued to make music but has been unable to regain the momentum he had with the single “Still” featuring the late-HG member Smoke Dawg (whom Drake regularly memorializes on social media) prior to his professional involvement with Drake.
Most of Mo G’s opinions on his working relationship with OVO are scattered across the internet in since-deleted Instagram Live videos and posts, but his 2018 interview with Los Angeles hip-hop radio show Power 106 is still up for viewing. After quoting Drake’s shoutout of him in “Summer Sixteen,” this is what Mo had to say about the record and his involvement with Drake in 2016 (verbal filler largely omitted for brevity):
That was nothin’ but love, yo. but to speak About that record, i don’t know if i should even speak about that record, know what i’m sayin’? you feel me? … i’m not here to speak on next people’s business or nothin’ out of respect and out of love. it ain’t the right thing to do. but other than that, it’s a hot record, i won’t lie about that
– Mo G on Power 106 Los Angeles (October 17, 2018)
Again, there’s nothing here to firmly support extortion accusations against OVO. But it is strange as part of a response to the question, “How did you and Drake link up?”
Why, exactly, did Mo G feel uncomfortable speaking about what appears to be the biggest moment in his music career to date? What is the uncomfortable “that” he’s avoiding here? If the unpaid fees and public disses had been resolved, or if nothing that made Drake look bad happened, wouldn’t Mo be able to at least touch on it and conclude with a we-all-good affirmation?
Between Mo G’s erratic behavior and Drake’s selective public shoutouts of various, sometimes opposing, Toronto crews — including the apparent HG rivals Wass Gang (mentioned in “War” and Travis Scott’s “Meltdown”) — it is difficult to pinpoint who is responsible for what in Toronto’s rap scene tension.
The souring of Drake’s brief working relationship with Mo G is among the biggest openings into the shadowy, complicated realm of Drake’s ties to Toronto street life. While Drake has insisted these ties existed prior to his career taking off, his intentions and his valuation of these ties seems to have changed along with his growing career.
In his 2011/2012 Complex cover story, Damien Scott writes Drake “has no delusions of himself as a gangster.” Years later, he has “.22s for new crews” and may “hire some help” to “get rid of these niggas” as he makes his involvement in the streets more apparent through his music.
XXXTentacion
While the late Florida phenom XXXTentacion never worked with Drake, he was just two years removed from his breakout single “Look At Me!” before publicly accusing Drake in an interview and on Instagram Live of biting his flow on the More Life track “KMT” in 2017. The issue here isn’t Drake’s rumored involvement in X’s murder shortly after these accusations, it is Drake’s subtle yet intentional enabling of these rumors to support the criminal edge in his image while avoiding serious scrutiny.
“SMS, Triple X / That’s the only time I ever shoot below the neck”
– Drake, “I’m Upset” (2018)
“If he held his tongue on that Live he’d be alive again, damn”
– Drake, “On BS” (2022)
Drake also spends the first part of verse 2 in “Daylight” (2023) denying his involvement in X’s murder to then spend the second part of verse 2 talking about how violent his associates are.
There is no material evidence connecting Aubrey Graham to the murder of Jahseh Onfroy. However, Drake’s sneaky insistence on being tied to XXXTentacion’s death is disturbing no matter what the truth is. More likely than not, Drake has nothing to do with it and he’s exploiting the murder of a dead young man for any number of possible aims: relevance, retaliation, self-aggrandizing, or perhaps a form of self-entertainment that involves watching commentators try to put these pieces together.
What do these dark innuendos do for Drake at this stage in his career? Put much more simply, why does one of the world’s richest and most popular artists want to risk being seen in this light?
The careers of iLoveMakonnen, Mo G, and XXXTentacion are only the clearest examples of what’s wrong in Drake’s approach toward hip-hop’s new guard. While there is less scrutiny of Drake’s conduct when a top rap prospect accepts his advances, the failed connections demonstrate two things: how difficult it is for artists on the wrong side of Drake to move on with their careers (add Quentin Miller to this list), and how entitled Drake feels to loyalty and respect from rappers. This vindictive you-owe-me mindset Drake has about his colleagues is one of several reasons for his shift into being the “bad guy” after years of being rap’s moody protagonist.
Was This Always The Plan?
This piece argues Drake did not always value numbers over acclaim. This perspective could very well be wrong.
It was on 2015’s viral hit “Know Yourself” where Drake proclaimed, “I’m turnin’ into a nigga that thinks about money and women like 24/7 / that’s where my life took me that’s just how shit happened to go.” But dating as far back as “Replacement Girl,” when was Drake ever not focused on money and women in his music?
Money, sex, drugs, and beef define much of hip-hop today, but Drake’s embodiment of anti-social hedonism deserves more criticism as someone who told us he’s “on a mission tryna shift the culture” and is the culture’s biggest export ever. That statement of intent in “Tuscan Leather” makes for good reflection: if Drake did shift the culture, how so?
Rappers sing a lot now. R&B artists rap more. Toronto is a stamped hip-hop city. Afrobeats broke into the Western mainstream. Rappers still hate women, take a bunch of drugs, and want to kill each other while killing themselves.
Drake has helped increase the diversity of sound and personality at the highest level of hip-hop, widening the floodgates his frenemy predecessor Ye f.k.a. Kanye West opened up. But even though shady business, Black-on-Black violence, and misogyny do not start and end with Drake, he plays a huge part in maintaining hip-hop’s worst flaws by virtue of doing these things as the culture’s most visible figure.
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Drake has given a lot to hip-hop and popular music at large. He’s also sapping the life out of hip-hop by holding the charts captive so his growing toxicity is unavoidable. Every new collaboration with a younger artist, every marketing campaign that spams his name and face across the internet, and every calculated viral social media moment presses all of the music industry’s ticklish spots. Drake arrests our attention at the expense of so many artists who are meeting our sociocultural moment or simply sound new and exciting. Only in the aftermath of his battle with Kendrick Lamar has this reality truly been challenged for the first time in a decade.
With the announcement of Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX performance and Kendrick’s release of “Watch The Party Die,” it is still unlikely Drake falls into irrelevance. But it is becoming more likely that we come out on the other side of Kendrick’s rampage in a world where the Drake software is uninstalled, a world where Drake is no longer fed to us by default. The potential of that post-Drake landscape is fascinating.
For more essential ATC readings on Drake, peep the pieces below
- Don’t Argue With Drake at Cheesecake Factory (2016)
- Drake is Michael Jackson, Kendrick is Prince (2016)
- Cavs and Warriors, Kendrick and Drake, The Streets and Silicon Valley (2017)
- The GRAMMYs (and Kendrick) Made Drake Give Up His Quest For A Classic (2018)
- Drake Has Sold More Records Than Lil Wayne and Jay Z (2019)
- The Best Answer To The Question “Is Drake A Culture Vulture?” (2020)
- “Toosie Slide” and Drake’s Push For Millennial Michael Jackson Status (2020)