Drake has hit back at Yasiin Bey with a little help from Method Man.
Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) criticized Drizzy in a recent interview by labeling him a “pop” artist, but the Canadian superstar has now responded.
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Taking to his Instagram Stories on Monday (January 15), Drake posted an old interview clip of Method Man while writing: “What umi say again? Lemme shine my light king don’t change up now,” referencing Bey’s classic song “Umi Says.”
The video in question finds the Wu-Tang Clan legend explaining what Hip Hop is to him.
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“Hip Hop is a culture. It’s a way of life, the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you walk. It’s the breakdancing, rhymes, stage show, DJ, mixing and scratching, the wordplay. That’s Hip Hop,” he says.
See Drake’s response below.
Yasiin Bey’s comments about Drake came during an interview with The Cutting Room Floor last week, where he said: “Drake is pop to me. In the sense like, if I was in Target in Houston and I heard a Drake song, it feels like a lot of his music is compatible with shopping. Or shopping with an edge, in certain instances.”
While he called the 6 God’s music “likeable,” Bey joked that his songs are an ideal backdrop for commerce.
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“I love this mall!” he laughingly exclaimed. “They have everything here. This is the new Drake — you hear it?”
Turning serious, the Brooklyn MC suggested that music designed to promote commerce may soon start to lose its luster: “Are we not in some early stage of that at this present hour? Buying and selling — where’s the message that I can use? What’s in it for your audience?”
NLE Choppa later jumped to Drake’s defense and hit back at Yasiin Bey by writing on social media: “They hate on this man so much it’s ridiculous. Dude catalog more than respectable. He like the [Kool-Aid] man different flavors for each day of the month. [Bey] don’t know what he talking about!”
The Black Star legend isn’t the first rapper to criticize Drake’s approach to music. Last year, Joe Budden slammed Drizzy’s For All the Dogs album for its apparent lack of maturity and growth.
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“[Drake is] rapping for the children. I had to look up how old this n-gga was when I finished listening to the album,” Budden said on his self-titled podcast.
“You gonna be 37 years old. Get the fuck away from some of these younger n-ggas and stop fucking these 25-year-olds … Why are you still fucking the 25-year-olds? You’re a 37-year-old billionaire.”
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He added: “I want to hear adult Drake rapping for adult people. That’s my issue with him today.”
Coincidentally, Drake namedropped Yasiin Bey on his For All the Dogs track “Away From Home,” rapping: “And Mos Def gave me like a rack for performin’/ Crib I got now make me think of when I had to put some money on a mortgage.”
