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Everything is Drake. We know this, you know this. Over the last, God, how long has it been, half a decade now there has not gone one month where we haven’t covered everything, Aubrey Graham. Hell, we even dedicated a week to him and a mere picture of him sitting on a fence can constitute as a post. But, for whatever reason, this particular interview with Tory Lanez has struck a chord with us. Likely, because we’ve had to endure seven months of respectfully barbed shade from Mr. Lanez and what’s felt like a never ending press cycle for Views. Yet, here we are against our better judgement aggregating this thing as well.
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For context, Lanez popped up on Ebro in the Morning and spent the first three minutes nodding politely (how beautifully Canadian) while Ebro went on about lightning(??) before speaking about his extremely uncooked beef with Drake. He maintains that it’s all “just hip-hop”, he enjoy’s Drake’s music, and that he’s coming for the number one spot regardless of who’s there. It’s irrelevant that Lanez avoids actually addressing the beef because you know we wrote this due to Drake’s presence. His name is bait and we are the minnows nipping at it, even if we only manage to grab the most miniscule chunk of worm meat a.k.a. content. Let’s ask you guys, our audience, this question: do you actually scour Twitter and Facebook for Drake’s name and flock to it regardless of what it’s attached to? No, because you’re smarter than that and can tell what’s bullshit and what’s not. We’re the dumb ones here for attempting to dupe y’all with this Drakebait. You know what the worst part is? The fact that Drake is in the headline for this anti-Drakebait piece means that this piece, in and of itself, is Drakebait. Congratulate us for we have well and truly played ourselves.
We’re never not talking about Drake and it extends to Toronto rap, which at the moment is always a game of Six Degrees of Aubrey Graham. Are you on OVO Sound? Do you know Drake? Do you also like sipping sangria from solo cups? Who knows? But if you’re from Toronto and a rapper, the narrative is inevitably going to circle back to Drizzy… the way the 6ix God intended, perhaps? Again, who knows. Because of Drake we’re always talking about Toronto and Toronto rap in pre and post-Drake language, as though he is the epicentre of this city and this scene— although to be fair he apparently is. He also literally equated himself to the tallest building in the city (formerly the tallest in the world) on Views and that says a lot to current or aspiring rappers. To Aubrey this is Drake’s city. Drake is a living, breathing cultural force and meme; the first of his kind, really. Asking every rapper or person from Toronto about anything related to Drake or creating a beef or very slim connection is really boring (we know, because we’re guilty of this). No one is going to get to his pedestal and that’s probably a very good thing because whomever is “next” can forge their own way.
Nevertheless, Drake will likely do something (silly, hopefully) that we’ll have to inevitably cover so this entire thing is pointless. News posts are a flat circle. Anyway, Tory Lanez went on to claim that he was on the dancehall wave before everyone else was, and that means nothing at all.
Jabbari Weekes, Phil Witmer, and Sarah MacDonald are all on Twitter so please give them your fondest regards and/or slander.
