Funkmaster Flex is far from Drake's favorite person. Yet even though the two don't see eye-to-eye, Flex couldn't help but try to give The Boy the respect he deserves.
Funk Flex hopped on Instagram Live with Million Dollaz Worth of Game's Wallo and Gillie Da King and their conversation spiraled into a heated argument when Flex argued that Drake could've been the greatest rapper of all time if he didn't have the ghostwriting scandal.
"If those reference tracks did not come out, Drake was the no. 1 rapper of all time," Flex said. "He's too versatile, his melodies, he has the bars, and he had the songs."
Flex and Drake will forever be linked due to Flex fueling Drake's beef with Meek Mill by leaking his Quentin Miller reference tracks. Although this didn't confirm that Drake relied on Miller for verses, the tracks provided melodies and concepts that were later used by Drake on If You're Reading This It's Too Late. They also solidified Meek's ghostwriting claims against Drizzy.
In public perception, Drake came out clean. He won the battle with the vicious "Back to Back" freestyle and eventually buried the hatchet with Meek.
Within hip-hop, Drake's association with ghostwriting did some damage to his status as a lyricist. Genre purest refused to accept the nuances of songwriting or the other tracks/verses Drake has written for other people when critiquing him. This situation started to liken itself to the way another Funk Flex moment was viewed by rap lovers.
In 2009, a young Drake stopped by Hot 97 to freestyle for Flex. Yet instead of doing it from sheer memory, Drake decided to read his verses off his Blackberry, causing fans to rip into him.
"Me and Drake, we practiced that verse in the room already. He didn't need the Blackberry because we practiced in the room with no Blackberry. So, when the camera came out, he pulled out the Blackberry," Flex said when explaining the situation to Gillie and Wallo. "You wanna know why? Because as a rapper, if you look at a guy with a Blackberry you go, oh, he must have wrote those words. He already knew the words when me and him were practicing in the room." Flex went on to accuse Drake of not writing the words to this freestyle either.
"'Oh, the camera's out? Let me show you this Blackberry as if I wrote these rhymes.' He didn't fucking write those freestyle rhymes on my show! I knew he didn't write it," Flex continued.
Drake's collaborative way of making music and rumored use of ghostwriting factored in to Flex not calling him the GOAT. Yet, he did admit that Drizzy would have been ahead of Jay-Z in his book if his creative process was never revealed.
