Drake and PartyNextDoor have shared their first collaborative album together, ‘$ome $exy $ongs 4 U’ – check out who they’ve name-checked on the record below.
The album is the pop-rap juggernaut’s first release since his highly-publicised rap battle with Kendrick Lamar. After the latter dropped ‘Not Like Us’ – the Grammy award-winning diss track he performed during his Super Bowl headline halftime show last Sunday – Drake was widely seen as the loser of the rap battle.
He has addressed the fallout and backlash on ‘$ome $exy $ongs 4 U’ – a collection of sultry R&B-infused songs with his longtime collaborator and signee to his label OVO, PartyNextDoor.
On ‘Gimme A Hug’ – one of the standout tracks from ‘$ome $exy $ongs 4 U’ – Drake clapped back at all the negativity surrounding him during his Lamar feud, calling out all the other artists (The Weeknd, Future, Metro Boomin, Rick Ross and more) who all took blows at him.
In his opening verse, he thanked his fans for their support as well as hyped up his influence on rap, rhyming: “‘Drizzy, you amazing, you the inspiration / You set the bar for the next generation / You Neo in The Matrix, these n****s just Nemo in the ocean / Small fish, making kids feel emotion / Using you for promotion,’ truer words have never been spoken.”
Drake continued, mocking the idea that his rivals like Lamar and Future believe they could replace him in rap – arguing they’d do more damage than good leading the genre: “Funny how it’s only bitch n****s that are waiting on The Boy’s obituary / ‘Cause if I die, it’s these n****s that become the sole beneficiary / And what the fuck are they gon’ do with it? / Have the girls up at 29 on stage twerking with a dictionary?”
Then the song switches to a more upbeat, club-friendly beat that samples Aaron Hall’s 1993 R&B hit ‘I Miss You’, before Drake spits: “They be dropping shit, but we be dropping harder shit / Fuck a rap beef, I’m tryna get the party lit / Tryna get the party lit for the bitches / Them Nike tights is hugging on that ass like they missed it” – seemingly downplaying his whole battle with Lamar.
He also threw a quick jab at his longtime nemesis, rapper-turned-media personality Joe Budden while addressing his podcast co-host: “Melyssa Ford, you a legend from the 6, hate to see you with a dick-sucker”.
The rapper also addressed his conflict with Future and Metro Boomin. “Broski just hit me, said, ‘Put all the beef on the side,’ I can’t,” Drake raps on ‘Brain Steel’, “Mm-hmm, I’m heated now, yeah / N****s want meet up, talk about shit, I’m vegan now / Evil eyes were staring at me and I see it now.”
Last March, Metro Boomin released their first ever joint album ‘We Don’t Trust You’, which hosted ‘Like That’ – the very song that ignited the infamous Drake-Lamar feud. On ‘Brain Steel’ – named after Young Thug‘s lawyer who defended the rapper in his historic YSL R.I.C.O case – the ‘God’s Plan’ rapper responded to the tweet Thugger made last October once freed: “@Drake @1future @MetroBoomin we all bruddas. Music aint the same without us collabin.”.
The last person fans believe Drake took a shot at on ‘$ome $exy $ongs 4 U’ is LeBron James. On ‘Greedy’, Drake raps: “It’s been a nice life, money and the bright lights / Ain’t as bad as people describe / I’ve been a nice guy, people I’ve done right by / Flipped on me, but, girl, it’s alright.”
Although the lyrics could reflect Drake’s feelings towards Lamar – who he brought on tour as an opening act on his 2012 ‘Club Paradise Tour’ and featured on his iconic 2012 album ‘Take Care’ – others speculate that Drake is upset that LeBron rapped along to Lamar’s verse on ‘Like That’. Drake and James were close friends, calling each other “brother” on social media from as early as 2017.
However, while on the ‘Anita Max Wynn’ Australasian tour, Drake swapped the lyrics to ‘Nonstop’ from his 2018 album ‘Scorpion’, rapping “How I go from 6 to 23 but not LeBron” instead of “How I go from 6 to 23 like I’m LeBron” – seemingly smiting his former friend. This caused many to speculate that James and Drake are no longer friends following the Drake-Lamar feud.
Throughout the record, Drake also shouted out and paid homage to many stars. On ‘Small Town Fame’, fans noticed the rapper name-dropped two of today’s biggest pop stars, Tate McRae and Charli XCX. First, he rapped, “Bitch, I feel like Tate McRae / Vanilla ice and white hoes, straight cake,” before using Charli’s name as a euphemism for cocaine and ecstasy: “Puttin’ Charli up her nose, X on her tongue / She been geekin’ hard, she done had a ‘Brat’ summer.”
The latter refers to last year’s ‘Brat’ summer cultural phenomenon – which celebrated the hedonistic, carefree partying ethos championed by Charli XCX’s now-iconic, Grammy-nominated sixth album of the same name. Drake’s mention of Charli nods to that spirit, as tells his own tale of drug-induced fun.
‘Raining In Houston’ also paid homage to the late Southern rap legend, DJ Screw – the man who popularised “chopped and screwed” remixes where a DJ or producer slows down a popular song and adds extra scratches throughout. Drake raps over a beat in Screw’s signature style and, in the intro, the announcer says: “If you got love, H-town, put your deuces up, put your H’s up one time to my brother, DJ Screw.”
Lastly, on ‘Glorious’, Drake praised his right-hand man and OVO signee Baka Not Nice for his vigilance: “He’s better off wavin’ a white flag, Baka seen bro, he was clutchin’ a side bag / Yeah, straight up asked him, ‘What’s in the side bag?’ / Tapped his chest, there’s nothin’ inside that / Guys won’t sick and my killies’ll fly that, we thought you were on that, broski, my bad.”
Many fans believe Drake deliberately shouted out Baka and collaborated with PartyNextDoor on ‘$ome $exy $ongs 4 U’ in response to ‘Not Like Us’. Both of Drake’s acts were name-checked in the song, with Lamar accusing: “And Party at the party playin’ with his nose now / And Baka got a weird case, why is he around?”
The “weird case” Lamar refers to Baka being arrested in 2014 for allegedly forcing a 22-year-old woman into prostitution. The rapper-bodyguard pled guilty to assaulting the woman and failing to comply with conditions for unrelated firearm charges the following year.
In other news, Lamar recently headlined the NFL Super Bowl LIX halftime show, performing ‘Not Like Us’ despite Drake’s current lawsuit against their label, Universal Music Group, for promoting and profiting off of a “defamatory” song about him.