Yasiin Bey wants Drake to know where he’s coming from.
On Monday, the 50-year-old rapper formerly known as Mos Def went on Instagram Live to extend an olive branch to Drizzy and clarify where he thinks fans should direct their focus.
"First of all, I don’t hate anyone," Bey opened his Drake-related remarks in the nearly 25-minute video. "My opinion is mine. It’s legal in all states, as far as I’m aware. It was not an opportunity to try to slander him, or to clown on him. I have reached out to him, I have no responses yet. I’m not keen to talk about people or to them through a screen, I prefer to talk to people directly. But I will say this. The young man is very talented, he’s been able to be very successful with that talent, and I have no issue with his success or anything that he's been able to achieve as a result of his talent."
Bey asserted that he doesn’t harbor any ill will toward the 6 God despite the mid-January headlines, and disagrees with the “mean-spirited” and "mocking" critiques the 37-year-old has dealt with in the past.
“I do feel that some of the criticism that he’s received in the past has been mean-spirited or unfair. So I don’t want to participate in that,” said Bey. “I’ve never had no issue with you personally, I don’t know you well enough to have any sort of issue with you in that regard. Nonetheless, it’s not sacrilegious to have a critique or opinion of a public figure, particularly one of that magnitude in current, modern culture.”
He went on to say, “Drake, if you would like to speak to me directly, you can at any point. I reached out to Chappelle, asked him to reach out to you. I DMed you. You are a very talented MC. But for me, I require more of myself and others than just talent or charm or charisma—particularly in times of urgent crisis."
He continued, “And what I would like to see, in terms of creators or creative people in the world as it relates to our culture, is for people to connect with us beyond the jukebox. Or the dancefloor. A fairweather friend can hardly be called a friend at all. The people that party with you, that’s cool but will they show up if you at the triage, or you in a crisis situation?”
Bey opened his stream with calls to “free Palestine, free Sudan, free Congo”—which he echoed later—and implored viewers to follow him in refusing to "participate in frivolity for frivolity’s sake."
"At this given time that we are all living through, this is not where the focus ought to be, what one artist or MC thinks of another one. … I wish there was this much energy about human rights, and real justice, and resolving real life-or-death conflicts where blood is happening," he said. "And some of that blood is the blood of innocents and children. So we can notice things, right, that are happening in global culture, but where we put our focus matters.”
In December, Yasiin Bey made an appearance on The Cutting Room Floor podcast. During his conversation with host Recho Omondi, Bey was asked if he thinks the For All the Dogs rapper is hip-hop.
“Drake is pop to me,” he said after a brief pause. "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, you know, shopping with an edge in certain instances."
Drake was swift to respond. Not long after Bey’s comments spread like wildfire online, Drake issued his response on his Instagram Story with a clip of Method Man describing what hip-hop is.
“Hip-hop is a culture, it’s a way of life,” said Method in the vintage video. “The way you dress, the way you talk, the way you walk, breakdancing, rhymes, stage shows, DJ, the mixing, the scratching, the wordplay. That’s hip-hop.”
Below the video, Drake wrote, “What Umi say again? Lemme shine my light king, don’t change up now,” along with a crying laughing emoji. The caption makes a reference to Bey’s 1999 track “Umi Says.”
Drake doubled down shortly after, simply calling Bey a “Bohemian bucket” in a comment under another Instagram post.
The rapper was able to count on more than just his fans for support. Common, who has frequently collaborated with Bey in the past, called Drake an “incredible songwriter and artist.”
NLE Choppa also came to his defense writing, “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 He don't know what he talking about !”
