Front Burner - Explaining Drake and Pusha T's beef

Episode Date: November 22, 2018

On Tuesday, rapper Pusha T had a concert in Toronto interrupted by a brawl in the audience. Fans threw beer at him and tried to jump on stage. And now, a man is in life-threatening condition after being stabbed. Pusha T and Canadian rapper Drake have been in a public feud since last spring, and Pusha has accused Drake of paying members of the rowdy audience. Author and Drake biographer Dalton Higgins on how this beef developed.

Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey, I'm Jamie Poisson. On Tuesday, there were hundreds of people at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto.

They were there to see rapper Pusha T. And at some point, people started throwing water and beer at the stage. It looked like a shower. And Pusha T, he stopped rapping. Fights broke out. And a person got stabbed. The show stopped. But after a few minutes, Pusha T came back out and he did another song.

And from the stage, he suggested very strongly that Drake was behind the stage rushing. Drake, the Toronto rapper, maybe the most famous Canadian person. Now, this feud between Drake and Pusha T, it's been going on for a while now. Today, on FrontBurner, how did we get here? And what does it mean when a rap beef spills into real life? You know, when you look at the history of hip-hop culture, what you find is there have been a number of high-profile deaths due to gun violence stemming from rat beefs. My name is Dalton Higgins. I'm a publicist, PR strategist, and the author of Far From Over, The Music and Life of Drake, which is a Drake biography.

Hi, Dalton. Hey, how are you doing? Dalton, you actually wrote a biography on Drake. I'm hoping that you can help paint a picture for me. What have the last few years been for him? Yeah, the last few years for Drake have been nothing short of stellar. He is essentially shattering all of the prior held records by the Beatles, most singles to top the Billboard charts.

He's basically annihilating music history because we grow up with people of a certain time and era. It's just like, yeah, the Rolling Stones are the greatest band of all time, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and he's essentially demolishing all of their records on Billboard charts, right? He's just an icon, an icon and a business mogul, essentially. And rapper Pusha T, who is very well known, but maybe not as well known as Drake. Can you tell me a bit about him? Yeah, Pusha T. So he's a very

well respected rapper, not just in the commercial realm, but I'd say more in the sort of underground hip hop realm. He's from Virginia. And he used to be in this duo with his brother called Eclipse. They actually have ties to Pharrell Williams. Okay, so it's Pharrell Williams, who he's a super iconoclast as far as the worlds of fashion, music, and popular culture. And he's the one that sort of brought them out in the 90s, you know, as far as putting out new music. They're super well-respected.

You know, a lot of people just kind of got their first introduction to Pusha T through this Drake scenario. But no, he's been rapping on the underground rap circuit for many, many years. I'm hoping that we can talk about this feud. I know it's been kind of going on for years, but it hasn't been very high profile. And then it exploded this spring. So can you tell me about why it exploded? So we all knew that Drake was coming out with Scorpion in the summer and that Pusha T had a solo album coming out. So he releases a song called Infrared,

alleges that, you know, Drake is not a real writer. How could you ever write these wrongs when you don't even write your songs? You know, he's cranked out all of these hits, these Billboard chart-topping hits, but he's not writing his own material. Now, that's sort of a moot point and a non-issue. Can you name me, like, some pop artist icon who doesn't have some sort of form of singer-songwriter working in the shadows

to write these songs? That type of accusation got sloughed off by a lot of, you know, hip-hop critics like myself. It's like, if he did, so what? Who cares? That, you know, if it's a ghostwriter that went uncredited or credited, it's a moot point. Nobody cares. At which point, you know, Drake is obviously incensed. He is actually a good writer. He's a very skilled songwriter and lyricist. That is what forms one part of his credibility is the fact that he is a good songwriter. So despite Drake being this kind of guy like a, you know, Degrassi show alumni and he was handed everything to him, you know, Silver Spoon.

No, he's a really good writer. Okay. everything to him, you know, Silver Spoon. No, he's a really good writer, okay? So he releases a track called, you know, Duppy Freestyle, where he basically attempts to tear Pusha T to shreds, you know? And we're like, okay, you know, ho-hum-yon, another, you know, back and forth.

This is probably a marketing ploy to generate interest around the fact that both of them have albums coming out in the spring and summer, and that's kind of how I read it. So Duppy Freestyle, you know, Drake releases Duppie Freestyle as a comeback track to Pusha T's Infrared, and to me, you know, it's a largely forgettable song

because he's alleging that, you know, Pusha T spends a disproportionate amount of time in his music talking about that he deals, you know, coke. He's like a big-time drug dealer. So Drake sort of calls that into question. Man, you might have sold the college kiss for Nike and Mercedes, but you act like you sold drugs for Escobar in the 80s. Now, in rap culture, when you call into question

someone's street credibility and that whole posing posture, that whole narrative... And it questions his identity. Yeah, and that's a big deal in hip-hop, questioning one's street credibility. In rap music, that's a huge deal. Is there anything else in Duppy Freestyle that he does? Yeah, so in Duppy Freestyle, Drake also goes after Pusha T's fiancée.

That's like a no-no, you know, in girlfriends, wives, mothers, fathers. So he went there, and I think that kind of compelled Pusha T to come back with some thermonuclear raps, let's just say. All bets are off because of that. That alone causes all bets to be off. I remember that he also sent Pusha T a $100,000 invoice. That was kind of more funny than anything. What was that? What was his argument there?

What was he trying to accomplish? Yeah, totally. You know, Drake can quite as easily have ignored anything having to do with Pusha T. Pusha T is just not quite on Drake's level as far as commercial success, as far as sexiness, saleability, billboard chart, you know, metrics. He sends this invoice, you know, OVO invoice saying, hey, you know, like, just me even engaging you. You owe me money. You should be paying me like royalties, you know, OVO invoice saying, hey, you know, like just me even engaging you. You owe me money. You should be paying me like royalties. You know, just the mere fact that I'm taking you on. You're just a mere mortal. So we have Pusha T's track Infrared, which says that Drake gets his songs ghostwritten.

And then Drake's response, which calls into question Pusha T's identity that he is a drug dealer and also this $100,000 invoice saying that just by engaging with him, he's making Pusha T all of this money. And then Pusha T goes like from where I'm sitting nuclear, and he releases the story of Adidon. And so can you tell me a bit about that? Now, this particular diss, it really, I guess, hits below the belt, you know, which is something that not that uncommon in hip hop. But for one, you know, like I wrote a biography about Drake called Far From Over. And so, you know, pretty much a little bit of a Drake scholar. And I didn't know that Drake had a son. I did not know that Drake had a child. And I don't think any music critic in general, rap music critic in particular, had any idea that he had a child. Okay. So for one,

the track reveals that Drake actually has a son. You are hiding a child. Let that boy come home. Deadbeat motherfucker playing Border Patrol. Adonis is your son. You know, so we're all here in Toronto and throughout Canada and the world for that matter going, he has a child. Like, how come we don't know this?

How come TMZ, you know, is not on this? You know, the tabloids. It's like Pusha T who's revealing that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know this. How come TMZ, you know, is not on this, you know, the tabloids? It's like Pusha T who's revealing that. Yeah, yeah. How is it that a rapper from Virginia who many people in popular who don't even quite know who he is, is revealing the fact that Drake has a child for one. Secondly, Drake works with a number of producers. They're kind of like his right hand men. One is Boy Wanda, you know, T-minus.

And then there's producer that goes by the name of 40. So in this in the same track story of Adidon, you know, he's basically taking potshots at 40 for, you know, having multiple sclerosis. He has MS. This is just mean. I mean, I know that the Multiple sclerosis society responded to this. Yes. Saying that this was completely just an awful thing to say. No, for sure. It's like ridiculing someone for having cancer or leukemia.

Like, who does that? Pusha T does that. Now, when you mentioned defenseless people who are sick in a hospital that passed away, that really sent me to a place where, you know, I just believed then and believe now that there's just a price that you have to pay for that. It's just, it's over. You're going to get, someone's going to punch you in the face.

And then he also goes on to ridicule Drake's mother. And you know, when you make fun of someone's mother or grandmother or family, any familial situations, those are fighting words. You're hitting so close to home. And then let's talk about the last thing, which I know some people have argued, which was the worst thing that he did, is that Pusha T included on that track, a picture of Drake in blackface. And can you tell me a little bit about that? When they came out, a lot of us in the music industry were thinking, was this photoshopped?

Why would someone who has a black identity, would they be wearing a blackface? When they came out, a lot of us in the music industry were thinking, was this photoshopped? Why would someone who has a black identity, would they be wearing a blackface of all things? So when we look at the history of blackface, you know, minstrel shows, right? So in the early 1900s in America, you had mostly white or Caucasian entertainers painting themselves in blackface and acting out what they thought was, you know, black identity, digging into all of these stereotypes and caricatures of what they thought a black identity was, you know? So it's the most offensive thing someone can do. And it's actually this blackface situation is happening to this day. You know, you've heard situations at various universities and throughout Canada, non-black people painting themselves in blackface and somehow thinking it's okay.

Yeah, so the idea of Drake donning blackface is like, you know, this makes no sense. Now, what a lot of people didn't know is when Drake did that piece, you know, that sort of marketing piece, it was to basically protest the fact that whenever black actors get roles, it's to be, you know, these stereotypical, it could be a drug dealer, a pimp, an athlete and musician and entertainer. You're restricted to these roles. You're not given leading roles. You're not given roles that veer outside of these stereotypical roles that have oftentimes been handed to black actors. So that's what he was actually protesting at the time. Much like Spike Lee.

Spike Lee had a film called Bamboozled. The network does not want to see Negroes on television unless they are buffoons. Where you see people, you know, running around in blackface, it's a protest move. Why is Pusha T able to exploit that? Like, what's the negative connotations around that?

And particularly connected to Drake. With Drake, one of the criticisms, you know, in his own hometown and outside of Canada, even, people question his credibility as, you know, so we know he's biracial. His father is African-American from the South and his mother is Jewish and Caucasian, you know, from Forest Hill, white. He puts out songs like Starting From the Bottom and people sort of, you know, ridicule that, like, Start From the Bottom, you know, like, you didn't come from the hood. You're not really a black and of African descent and from low-income environments. Yeah, you were in Degrassi, you know, ridicule that they like started from the bottom, you know, like you didn't come from the hood. You're not really a black and of African descent and from low income environments. Yeah, you were in Degrassi, you know, you sort of spent a lot of your formative years

in Forest Hill, which is one of the wealthiest urban city enclaves in all of Canada, to be honest, right? Poking shots, I think things around cultural identity. I think it's sort of playing around with that. I think PushST is kind of saying this guy's not even, this guy's not a genuine, authentic black person, because how would a black person dress in blackface to do anything? You know, it's so offensive. After Pusha T releases Story of Adidon, which is a critical look at Drake and hits him in so many personal spaces, Drake doesn't really respond. Why is that?

Drake got some very good advice in not responding. I think that was the smart, wise thing to do. It was the forward-thinking, progressive thing to do. And I'll tell you why. You know, when you look at the history of hip-hop culture, rap music in particular, what you find is there have been a number of high-profile deaths due to gun violence stemming from rap beefs, you know, things that were supposed to stay on wax or recorded. So Drake got some very good advice from James Prince, CEO of a company called Rap-A-Lot Records, and he's kind of like this, he provides this sort of elderly sage wisdom to many emerging burgeoning rap talents like Drake.

I made an OG call to Drake telling him, I don't want you to respond to this. You know what I mean? I don't want, we're going to put this to bed because, you know, we can't get in a pig pen with pigs because pigs turn into hogs and then hogs get slaughtered. So the idea here that this OG giving Drake advice not to respond, that is actually brilliant because this could have really escalated into something. That brings us to Tuesday night.

So Pusha T is on stage at the Danforth Music Hall. For people who weren't there on Tuesday night, can you take me through what happened? Yeah, people started throwing beers. It looked like it was coming from different parts of this, you know, like a stage right, stage left. Yeah, people started throwing beers. It looked like it was coming from different parts of this, you know, like a stage right, stage left. And then a guy appears to kind of run, almost rush the stage, at which point he is thrown down on the ground by Pusha T's security detail.

Pusha T now then reemerges from backstage. He comes back on, he suggests, or he says, that someone is paying people to throw water and beer on stage. This is the pace of this. that someone is paying people to throw water and beer on stage. This nigga pays some niggas to throw beer, nigga. The fuck is that? And then he starts performing Infrared, which is the song that we talked about before, where he accuses Drake of ghostwriting. He was like, you know, I dare you, you know?

Like, how dare you? And, you know, yeah. Well, you don't need to write your songs. So the idea here is that there is like very strong suggestion that Pusha T is accusing Drake of instigating what happened at the concert on Tuesday night. But we don't actually have any evidence that Drake is behind this. Is that right? Yeah, no, that is correct. I mean, there are a couple interesting things happening at the same time. So for one, Drake has a lot of hardcore fans in Toronto. So this is his hometown, right? Pusha T is performing in Drake's hometown. This is post-Story of Adidon, post-Hitting Below the Belt, right? We know that's been going on for

many months, since the summer of 2018, all right? And so there are a lot of, when you go to OVO Fest, for example, you know, or if you even just go on Google, you're going to see that a lot of raging fans, fan is the short term for fanatics, you know? So people tattooing OVO on their bodies, tattooing the name of his albums on his bodies. I'm actually surprised they didn't cancel this tour date, to be honest, and skip over and go to another city, because Drake has a real army, you know, sort of like a ride or die. So the people throwing beer on stage and we see it's all on the web now. We can see that, you know, yeah, there are a lot of I'm just was suggesting that there are a ton of Drake fans that might quite simply might have just been independently pissed off at the fact that Pusha T arguably almost ended Drake's rap career

by exposing all of what he exposed in the story of Added On. There are a lot of hip-hop fans that are really upset about what happened. I think that Toronto is lucky to have top-quality rap acts come to the city, and just to create that reputation for Toronto is pretty embarrassing and pretty sad, I think. Yeah, I think in Toronto, when it comes to booking music venues to do hip-hop concerts, there's always been a lot of controversy surrounding that and that a lot of venue owners, they refuse to book. Rap promoters here will tell you that.

They refuse to book venues to our community when we want to stage rap concerts. I don't think this incident is doing the rap community any favors. The fact that this incident sort of spiraled into, you know, a violent incident, right? It doesn't help us. So when you attend concerts, you know, do altercations happen? Do people throw beer and alcohol on stage? Yes, they do. You know, I used to be a music programmer.

I'm pretty well versed on a multiplicity of music genres. You see this type of thing happening all the time. You see bouncers punching guys out, tossing them out the back door. But the fact that rap music is largely produced by young, black and racialized men and women, I think it puts the microscope on the community even more so. So if I want to go stage after this podcast, put together a show, I think some venues will be like, oh, it's another hip hop show that's going to, you know, end up in some acts of violence. And these guys who have hit each other in very vulnerable places. And I mean, I think you can make an argument which one went further. Where does this go from here? A lot of the sort of mainstream media, they're sort of focusing on like, oh, that was very gruesome details that didn't need to be revealed in a song. I can point to you without even blinking to about 30 other songs that,

you know, are equal, you know, as far as basically taking it to the competitor, battling. The history of hip hop, Afrika Bambaataa, the godfather of rap, you know, he invented hip hop as a means, as a diversion tactic around violence. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, in the mid 70s, he was throwing parties in the Bronx, South Bronx. He was a former gang member. Hip-hop was invented as a diversion tactic away from committing acts of violence in real life. And what you do now is you battle. You battle on the mic. You write songs. You dissy one another, right? So I love rap beefs, actually. You know what I mean? And there are a lot of great ones. When we look at some of the greatest rappers of all time, you know, Jay-Z, who we know

is arguably one of the greatest of all time. He and Nas went at it for a couple of years. Yo, I know you ain't talking about me, dog. You? What? KRS-One and MC Chan. So there are like a gazillion rap beefs in the history of this 40 plus year old culture. When the beef carries itself outside of the recording studios, outside of the DSPs,

Spotify, Tidal, iTunes, that's when I have an issue. And I think a lot of hip hop enthusiasts have a big issue with that when it escalates into violence. I love that you said that the mainstream media was focusing too much on what they detailed that maybe they shouldn't have gone so far in these songs. Like, that's me. I just asked you so many of those questions. Yeah, it's part of hip hop. It's part of rap music's DNA to basically, you know, to say, hey, I'm the greatest rapper. It's part of the hyper-masculinity, you know. It's a very male-dominated, you know,

sadly and unfortunately, a culture. But one part of that, one small part of that is me saying, hey, I'm the best rapper. You suck badly. And I'm going to spell out for you in under three minutes why I think you suck so badly. So this is all a part of it. I want to thank you so much for this conversation.

Thank you. So that was your explainer today on Drake and Pusha T. So that was your explainer today on Drake and Pusha T. If you like explainers, we've got some other good ones that try to break down really complicated subjects like Brexit and carbon taxes. You can check them out. They're in our feed. That's it for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. She lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe.

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