The back and forth between Drake and Pusha T has been one of the most exciting moments in Hip Hop this side of 2000. The diss tracks are educating the youth on the lack of borders when it comes to content in beef as well as restoring the competitive nature between rappers in lyricism, not album sales or chart numbers. And that’s just the impact from round one (although that might be all we’re getting if Kanye West’s apparent peace treaty holds).
But it’s easy for fans to get caught up with their previous allegiances, so HipHopDX is breaking down the numbers on both sides to give a fair presentation of the facts.
Number Of Years This Beef Has Gone On
7 Years
The beef between Pusha T and Drake originally stems from an argument between Lil Wayne and Clipse in 2006.
Here’s a quick rundown of the timeline.
April 2006: After Lil Wayne appeared on an issue of Vibe wearing Bape, Malice rapped, “Niggas bite the style from the shoes to the watches” on the song “Mr. Me Too.” Each camp then played the other side down with disrespect in several interviews that followed.
May 10, 2011: Pusha raps “They done freed Weezy/ Congratulations my nigga” on “Open Your Eyes.”
May 20, 2011: Drake released the song “Dreams Money Can Buy” with the line, “And I feel like lately it went from Top 5 to remaining 5/ My favorite rappers either lost it or ain’t alive.”
September 26, 2011: Pusha releases “Don’t Fuck With Me” over the same beat as “Dreams Money Can Buy,” solely aimed at Drake.
May 24, 2012: Pusha kept the hits coming with “Exodus 23:1,” which had the memorable line, “You signed to one nigga that signed to another nigga/ That’s signed to three niggas, now that’s bad luck.”
September 24, 2013: Drake responded with the line “I’m just as famous as my mentor/ But that’s still the boss, don’t get sent for/ Get hype on tracks and jump in front of a bullet you wasn’t meant for” on “Tuscan Leather” from his album Nothing Was The Same.
October 12, 2016: Pusha released “H.G.T.V. Freestyle” and reignited the beef with “It’s too far gone when the realest ain’t real/ I walk amongst the clouds so your ceilings ain’t real/ These niggas Call of Duty cause their killings ain’t real/ With a questionable pen so the feelin’ ain’t real.”
October 23, 2016: Drake then responded with “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” on his song “Two Birds, One Stone.”
May 25, 2018: Pusha’s song “Infrared” on his Daytona album contains the lines “How could you ever right these wrongs/ When you don’t even write your songs?” and “The game’s fucked up/ Niggas’ beats is bangin’, nigga, ya hooks did it/ The lyric pennin’ equal the Trumps winnin’/ The bigger question is how the Russians did it/ It was written like Nas, but it came from Quentin.”
May 25, 2018: Within 24 hours, Drake dropped “Duppy Freestyle.”
May 29, 2018: Pusha comes back hard with “The Story Of Adidon.”
# Of Actual Disses In Each Response
Duppy Freestyle: 17 (9 are aimed at Pusha)
The Story Of Adidon: 11 (8 are aimed at Drake)
By DX’s count, Drake pulls away on the scorecard if this was a boxing match with punches landed. He strings together more combos like, “Father had to stretch his hands out and get it from me/ I pop style for 30 hours then let him repeat.” He also has a wider scope for his targets than Pusha, going after Virginia (Pusha’s fiancée) and other associates. Pusha picks fewer targets then hones in and digs deep, focusing on the baby mama drama. And don’t forget the artwork for “The Story Of Adidon.”
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References To Other People
Duppy Freestyle: 8
The Story Of Adidon: 6
The collateral damage from this beef is far reaching as various members from each crew and family members have been name dropped. And without fail, Quentin Miller is brought up on both sides.
# Of Cuss Words
Duppy Freestyle: 1 (Fuck)
The Story Of Adidon: 3 (Bitch, Muthafucka, Muthafuckin’)
Both diss tracks are relatively clean. Each rapper chooses to keep the explicit content to the actual lyrical barbs.
Song References In Drake’s Response
5
Drake put energy into wordplay in his diss track, using song names as part of his insults. They include “Pop Style,” “Cruel Summer,” “30 Hours,” “Father Stretch My Hands,” and “Infrared.”
SoundCloud Plays
Duppy Freestyle: 9.95 Million (since May 25)
The Story Of Adidon: 9.44 Million (since May 29)
The difference in streams can be attributed to the fact that Drake’s response has been out several days longer than Pusha’s. But the average streams per day shows that Pusha has Drake beat on plays.
Song Length
Duppy Freestyle: 3:05 (481 words)
The Story Of Adidon: 3:09 (338 words)
They both clock in at just over three minutes, but their approaches to what they do with that time is very different. Drake has a buckshot approach with his victims while Pusha prefers to snipe at those closest to Drake. In the literal sense of who said more, Pusha fit 338 words into his verse while Drake had 481 words.
Interactions On Genius
Duppy Freestyle: 1.1M views and 288 contributors
The Story Of Adidon: 1.3M and 361 contributors
Pusha’s track has surpassed Drake’s among people looking into the meaning of the lyrics, even with it dropping four days later.
Time Before A Response
Drake: Less than 24 hours
Pusha T: 4 days
While Drake wasted almost no time releasing his response to “Infrared,” Pusha took his time to craft something on his own terms. This is actually on brand for his latest album since the name comes as a result of Pusha feeling like he can afford to make music on his own schedule at this point in his career. The clock is running now on Drake’s side at this point for Round 2.
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Amount Of Money Involved
$200,000
Aside from the $100,000 that OVO invoiced to G.O.O.D. Music, Pusha T also claims Drake has offered $100,000 to anyone who can give him dirt on Pusha.
Number Of Sophie Brussaux Searches On Pornhub
770,134
After the internet put two and two together, people uncovered that Drake’s alleged baby mother is former nude video model Sophie Brussaux. She’s since become a painter but naturally people were curious about her previous work. So, Pornhub ran a report of how many times people searched for Sophie Brussaux on May 30. Before “The Story Of Adidon” dropped on May 29, her name was searched, on average, 44 times a day. Within 24 hours later, “Sophie Brussaux” was searched 513,760 times and her former stage name “Rosee Divine” 256,374 times.
# Of Unrelated Beefs Reignited
1
Somehow, the decades-long beef between 50 Cent and Ja Rule has started up again in the peanut gallery of Drake and Pusha’s battle. Ja Rule tweeted that “Loose Change” was “one of the most disrespectful disses of ALL TIME.” 50 was quick to reply with a jab about the Fyre Festival. The two have since gone back and forth on Twitter and Instagram to the joy of old heads.
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# Of Jokes Resulting From The Fray
Too many to count
The internet was eating up the verbal exchanges between Pusha and Drake, with the latter getting the brunt of jokes for the revelation about his alleged baby mama. Take a look at a small portion of the antics below.
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Slow day at DX I see, SMH!
This shit is beyond unnecessary.
What a corny beef.. all started because Weezy wore some BAPE.. them Clipse boys are some hoes for real.. That’s feminine as fuck
The lengths DX writers go through to dickride Drake… smh
Nah son they keep deleting my comments about Pusha and Malice being some jealous hoes starting beef with Wayne over wearing some clothes
Drake is a girl
And Pusha T wore a skirt on stage.. look it up
All this over Weezy wearing some BAPE? Them Clipse boys were on some serious HOE SHIT for that. Female behavior.
It’s also been 5 days and other than a lame excuse for blackface not so much as a tweet from Drake. Like DX even says, Push is beating Drake on both Soundcloud and Genius. Out of this entire beef right now the only thing anyone is talking about is Drake’s baby. Push made fun of MS on that track and still everyone’s only talking about the baby. No one can even remember what Drake dissed Push for in Duppy. Push made the entire beef about that single issue, which puts Drake in a wholly defensive position unable to retaliate with any meaningful offense. Push is winning hard right now. Drake is probably having to rewrite half the album now to address the hidden baby stuff because until he does any attack in Push would just be ignored.
Just wait though Drake’s gonna get all ’emotional’ and blame the neglect of his son on some ‘my daddy wasn’t there for me so I didn’t know how to be a father to my son’ bull****. 10 days ago Drake wouldn’t acknowledge kid now I bet his next album will be dedicated to him. Dude is shameless. Notice the way Drake always parades his father around with those Steve Harvey suits in front of the press. Why doesn’t Drake do that with his mother? The parent that actually cared for him and raised him his entire life. It isn’t because she’s a little old white/jewish lady is it? The woman who basically gave him anything he wanted because he was a snotty little TV star. Those rumors about Drake distancing himself from the kid because he’s too white looking doesn’t seem all that far-fetched considering. Ironic because neglecting a child like that is perpetuating a horrible stereotype black men have to contend with on a daily basis.
Just wait though Drake’s gonna get all ’emotional’ and blame the neglect of his son on some ‘my daddy wasn’t there for me so I didn’t know how to be a father to my son’ bull****. 10 days ago Drake wouldn’t acknowledge kid now I bet his next album will be dedicated to him. Dude is shameless. Notice the way Drake always parades his father around with those Steve Harvey suits in front of the press. Why doesn’t Drake do that with his mother? The parent that actually cared for him and raised him his entire life. It isn’t because she’s a little old white lady is it? The woman who basically gave him anything he wanted because he was a snotty little TV star. Those rumors about Drake distancing himself from the kid because he’s too white looking doesn’t seem all that far-fetched considering. Ironic because neglecting a child like that is perpetuating a horrible stereotype black men have to contend with on a daily basis.
yall are weirdos talkin about other grown me s business. it does t seem like you got daddies cuz no one ever taught you to beca man and not gossip like bitches
Drake built his career over being emotional why should he at all be surprised when someone attacks and bests him at his own game? This beef is funny as hell, not sure what’s getting your panties in a bunch unless you’re a drakestan maybe.
Drake’s career will survive, no denying the dude is a hit making machine. After all is said and done though I’m willing to bet he’ll stop acting like Mr. Untouchable. Pusha spanked the boy lol, I was kinda hoping it would’be been Kendrick, but I guess after control and that TDE cypher on BET Drake knew better than to go after him.
It’s funny……you have to appreciate what’s happening here that most, including DX, missed. The perceived underdog is clearly winning this fight and not sure how they missed this and if everyone is seeing this. I think we all can agree that the Drake responses to Meek Mill….were (pun intended) “back to back”, they were swift and Duppy was a 24hr response. No response by Drake thus far – DX should have measured the longest time Drake took to respond to a direct diss. Clearly Pusha gave this man a Thanos punch (with infinity stones) to the throat lyrically but he burned him on issues that created a PR nightmare. DX – you got measure impact. You guys were pretty surface on this. Here is evidence: If you do a google search for Drake right now, and if you keep refreshing every 6 – 8 hours or so, the “spin cycle” (Ex: MSN and Wonderwall),of positive Drake stories are starting to pop out of nowhere; coincidentally after PushaT dropped that track. Drake’s team is working overtime right now to rebuild his image. I would even go out on a limb and argue that of any beefs I can remember, I think PushaT did the most damage to Drake’s image. Think of image, destroying beefs…..50 did Ja pretty bad to the point where that guy probably lost millions from it. Has there a greater impact? People – David caught Goliath (not lyrically, but commercially) pretty bad.
” If you do a google search for Drake right now, and if you keep refreshing every 6 – 8 hours “….. this is where you lost me, get a life bro! when the last time you heard someone say “Put on some Pusha T”
few years prior to someone i run with asking for drake….
Pusha has messed Drake’s money up bad. The whole a.d.i.d.a.s. marketing campaign was revealed and now they’re scrabbling to get that fixed. Drake should’ve stayed with Jumpman. Somebody from a.d.i.d.a.s. leaked that info and with Ye being apart of that company too there is no surprise.
Drake: L Pusha: W. Girls still love you tho
Sophie is a painter? Cum shots to the face is painting now? LOL
You are wrong drake had push album Tuesday before it came out
I don’t have to read the artical to know that hhdx has their mouth wrapped right around drake more than his pornstar bm. Lol drake takes no L’s on this site. Despite the fact that pusha got him looking real meek mill-ish rn
Drake won bar for bar on Pusha, plus Pusha is a joke and could never hold the jock of Drake. Everyone is just freaking out because it’s Drake.
Shut up f.a.g
Fake Drake’s a bitch made pop puppet in blackface who talks a lota “free smoke” bullshit then backs down like the cowardly bitch he is when shit gets real.
Drake could push a button but he couldn’t Pusha T.