The tale of the two giants in the industry
This past month, the beef between famous American music producer and rapper Kanye West and the Canadian rapper Drake took part in an album showdown when they both dropped their respective albums “Donda” and “Certified Lover Boy” which hit the internet by storm making it the hottest and most trending story of August. For over a decade, Drake and Kanye have battled for musical royalty and their names have always been a controversial topic in the GOAT (greatest of all time) debate. The two dominated the charts whenever they released new music and there has always been a competitive rivalry between them. So let’s see where the history and reasoning behind this month’s internet saga started.
Some backstory:
Until recent years, the feud between Drake and Kanye could only be described as a cold war. Kanye, who was already a huge sensation when Drake burst onto the scene, played a very key role in Drake’s early success by helping produce his songs and film music videos for him(Genius). But as Drake’s popularity grew, the relationship between them took a turn for the worst and went from a brotherly relationship to a fierce rivalry. The music industry is very competitive, and Kanye knew that Drake could one day surpass his level of stardom. At the heights of their career, Kanye described Drake as an ‘amazing sparring partner’ that pushed each other to do better. This rivalry continued for years and there were times where they looked to be working together again and times where it seemed that they had ‘beef’. But nothing major arose up until 2018...
In the summer of 2018, a huge story came out that suggested that Kanye had sent Drake a beat to make a song on as a ‘peace offering’ and to improve the relationship that they had. Only to find out that the day after, that Kanye had dropped “Lift Yourself” which was a song using the exact same beat that was gifted. Drake quickly realized that the so-called ‘peace-offering was just a ploy to troll and tease Drake to pushing him over the edge.
credit: C. Vernon Coleman II/XXL
“He played me ‘Lift Yourself’ and he said, ‘You can have this if you want.’ I was hyped, I started writing to it… BOOM, ‘Know yourself’ drops and then I realized that he was just trolling.” -Drake on Lebron James and Maverick Carter's HBO series ' The Shop'
The ALbums
Now that we’ve looked at what built up to this album let’s see what actually happened this past month...
Donda:
Donda, released on August 29th, 2021, explored the themes of grief, religion, love, and fame. The album name ‘Donda’ originated from Kanye’s late mother, Donda West, and this album has been described as a tribute to her life. The album recorded 375 million streams on Spotify after the first week and the most streamed songs included: Hurricane, Jail, Off The Grid, and No Child Left Behind.
Certified Loverboy
In comparison to ‘Donda’, Certified Lover Boy, released September 3, 2021, is much more lighthearted and deals with Drake’s internal conflicts and his struggle to find a way to commit. Drake described his album as “a combination of toxic masculinity and acceptance of the truth which is inevitably heartbreaking” on a hard-to-pars note provided on Apple Music. CLB produced 497 million streams in the first week on Spotify with the top songs being: Girls Want Girls, Fair Trade, Way 2 Sexy, Champagne Poetry.
Both albums were very highly anticipated through 2021 in the music industry and the two albums drew comparisons to each other due to the fact that they were rumored to be released in similar time periods. Social Media had mixed feelings about the two albums and some said that one was better than the other. But overall there was a common consensus between both of the albums that they were both very underwheleming and overhyped.
Closing Remarks
For Kanye and Drake stans who’ve been following the two music titans for an extended period of time, this album dropped served as a ‘grand finale’ to a very long history of one-ups-man-ship. For casuals, it can be seen as petty alpha males battling to be the ‘top-dog of the music industry. Either way, there is no doubting that this feud between the two has pushed each other to create better music and there is not much argument that the two could be seen as the Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier of the modern-day music scene.
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