Drake seemingly responded to Yasiin Bey in a spicy dispatch on his Instagram Story.
The For All the Dogs rapper shared an IG video of Method Man describing what hip-hop is and wrote, “What Umi say again? Lemme shine my light king, don’t change up now,” followed by a crying laughing emoji. Drake's caption is a nod to Bey's 1999 song "Umi Says."
The back and forth was recently sparked by a clip of the artist formerly known as Mos Def calling Drizzy's music "compatible with shopping."
"Drake is pop to me," Bey said. "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." He added, "Or, you know, shopping with an edge in certain instances."
Bey then called Drake's "likable," though he gave a little side-eye before joking: "So many products! So many SKUS! Look at all these SKUs! I love this mall. Look at this place! I mean, look at this place! They have everything! Everything's here. Oh, this is great. This is the new Drake, you hear it? It's great."
Bey continued: "What happens when this thing collapses? What happens when the columns start buckling? Are we not in some early stage of that at this present hour? Are we seeing the collapse of an empire?"
Some think Bey's comments are related to something Drake said about Bey last year following the release of his poetry book, Titles Ruin Everything. When poets like Hanif Abdurraqib and Aris Kian honestly reviewed the book for Complex, Drake DM'd Complex asking for a different type of review: "Where the baddest Instagram girls in the world review my poetry book, not the head of the Mos Def fan club... Thanks." We obliged.
It's worth noting that Drake releases songs that are a nod to pop music, if not pop music outright, including DJ Khaled's song "Popstar" featuring the OVO head. Drake also disputed the idea that his hit "Hotline Bling" was "not a rap song" after it won the Grammy for Best Rap Song. “I’m a black artist, I’m apparently a rapper, even though ‘Hotline Bling’ is not a rap song,” said Drake, to DJ Semtex, in 2017. “The only category that they can manage to fit me in is in a rap category, maybe because I’ve rapped in the past or because I’m black.”
It's also worth mentioning that Bey previously covered "Hotline Bling" during a show in Paris in October 2018.
