Drake Says He Shelved A Pusha-T Response Track

Michael Steele/Getty Images

Drake Says He Shelved A Pusha-T Response Track

Michael Steele/Getty Images

Drake was a guest on LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s HBO show The Shop last night, where he talked about his parents, the mother of his child, and his recent feud with Kanye West and Pusha-T. As Complex reports, he claimed that it all started when Kanye invited him to Wyoming to work on some beats for Drake, including “Lift Yourself.”

“I ended up linking with Ye, and he sold me on this whole speech of like, ‘I’m in a great place, I’m making money, and I’m a father, and I wanna be Quincy Jones and help you, but in order to do that, you’ve gotta be transparent with me, ” Drake said. “And you gotta play me your music, and you gotta tell me when you’re dropping. And I know you don’t like to do things like that.’ And so I was in the studio, guess we all kind of felt a genuine vibe from it. So I play him my music, and I told him when I was dropping.”

Drake still thought things were good between them, so he went to Wyoming, where he found out that Kanye was actually working on an album of his own. “I’m in Wyoming, I play him ‘March 14.’ I send him a picture of my son,” Drake recalled. “I tell him I’m having trouble with my son’s mother. We had a conversation.” That’s when things started to go sideways.

“I wake up, and all these dates are out. One by one by one. All of them around June 15,” Drake continued. “Then the next two days, whatever, I wake up now to this text from him, passive like, ‘Yo, I love you brother.’ ‘Lift Yourself’ comes out with him just talking nonsense. Oh this guy’s trolling me. This was like a manipulative, like, ‘I wanna break you’ thing. So I said alright. I’m gonna go back to distancing myself again. I know what this is. Then, the first album drops. And of course there’s a diss song toward me that you produced, that’s talking about writing? I was just there with you as friends helping you, and now you’re dissing me. So I’m like, man, this is dark.”

In response to the diss on “Infrared” off of Pusha-T’s Kanye-produced album Daytona, Drake came out with “Duppy Freestyle,” firing shots at both Pusha and Kanye. And then, of course, Pusha released “The Story Of Adidon,” an absolutely vicious diss track that revealed the existence of Drake’s son, went after his family, and mocked Noah “40” Shebib’s multiple sclerosis. Drake says he was horrified:

People love to say, like rap purists and people who just love confrontation, they love to say, “Aye there’s no rules in this shit.” But there are fucking rules in this shit,. And I’m gonna tell you something: It’s like, I knew something was gonna come up about my kid. They had to add the deadbeat thing to make it more appealing, which is fine. I understand that. Even that, I was like, OK. The mom and dad thing, whatever. You don’t even know my family. But I’mma tell you, wishing death on my friend that has MS … I study rap battles for a living. Now when you mention defenseless people who are sick in the hospital, that passed away, that really sent me to a place where I just believed then, and believe now, that there’s just a price that you have to pay for that. It’s over. You’re gonna get … someone’s gonna fucking punch you in the fucking face. The shit’s done, the event’s over. I wanted to do other things. I didn’t wanna further your reputation or your career by rapping back at you and having this exchange. And that was it for me.

Drake also reveals that he recorded another diss track in response with “terrible things” in it but decided not to put it out. “I got home and I just listened back to it, and I was like, man, this is not something I ever wanna be remembered for,” he said. “This is not even a place that I necessarily want to go. And to all the people who enjoy that, I tip my hat to you. By the way, hell of a chess move. The song [“The Story Of Adidon”], I thought it was trash. But the chess move was genius. Back against the wall. I either go all the way filthy or I fall back and I have this sort of chink in my armor for the rest of time to a rap purist. Which is fine, I can live with that. I would much rather live with that than the things that I was about to … the research I did, the things that I was gonna say, and the places that I was gonna go. Not only for him, but the other guy too.”

The beef is now over, according to Kanye West and behind-the-scenes rap figure J Prince, and Kanye later apologized to Drake for “any negative energy” in a late-night tweetstorm.

Elsewhere in his appearance on The Shop, Drake discussed his relationship with his son and his son’s mother:

I do wanna be able to explain to my son what happened, but I don’t have any desire to not love his mother. Or I don’t ever want the world to be angry at his mother. We found ourselves in a situation, and we are both equally responsible. And now I’m just really excited to be a great father. I have a son, he’s a beautiful boy. No matter what happens, I have an unconditional love for the mother of my child because I want him to love his mother and I have to project that energy. But I didn’t come from that. I came from my mother being like, “Nah, your dad is this.” But one thing my dad would never speak ill of my mother ever, ever, ever. And my mother is the nicest, kindest, sweetest woman, but she’s a woman scorned, and a woman who is exhausted.

Watch some clips below.

At his show in Los Angeles last night, as Pitchfork reports, Drake brought Chris Brown to the stage as a special guest. “I want to share this moment with y’all tonight. This is something I waited a long time for. I got the utmost respect — I think this guy’s one of the most talented human beings on the planet,” he said before Brown performed “Party.” “I never really got my chance to show him. So I figured tonight — in Staples Center, with each and every one of y’all — it would be the perfect time to share this moment.”

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