Image via Complex Original
Last night, Drake's 4th Annual OVO Festival at Toronto's Molson Canadian Amphitheatre was an all-star celebration. Guests included a who's-who of today's biggest rap stars, from Lil Wayne to French Montana, from Big Sean to Wale, from J. Cole to Miguel.
But perhaps most surprising of all, an appearance from none other than Kanye West.
Drake has sent subliminals at Kanye for the past several years. He made no secret about his ambitions for hip-hop's throne. A throne that Kanye has occupied for the past few years. So last night's news left a lot of rap heads scratching their heads. How could Kanye appear, not as a headliner, but as a surprise guest, at a Drake concert, in Drake's own city?
What were Kanye's motives? We took a look at the various theories flying around the hip-hop world and broke them down into five distinct catagories. We then ran them through a high-tech machine that determined the exact probability that each one might be true, presented as a percentage. So allow us to break down What Kanye's Appearance at Drake's OVO Fest Really Means.
Written by David Drake (@somanyshrimp) and Dave Bry (@davebry9)
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Kanye was trying to upstage Drake at his own show.
Probability: 43.99847%
If you have yet to watch this awesomeness, you should. It's a video from last week, Thursday night, when Kanye joined his Texan protege, Travi$ Scott at a concert in Los Angeles and absolute, hero-worship bedlam broke out. So one theory holds that this is what Kanye was going at OVO. Yeezus is not selling well, but to a certain segment of the audience (the segment that most music critics seem to fall into) he really has made himself into something close to a god. Might his thinking have been: I'm going to come to Toronto, on Drake's turf, and upstage him, make the whole place go crazy like I did at the Travi$ Scott show, so that what everybody will be talking about tomorrow will not be just that Drake tore down Toronto last night, but that KANYE showed up and tore down Toronto last night. Was this a stab at big-footing?
Kanye's just being Kanye: He'll rap in front of anyone who will listen, and OVO is the biggest stage this week.
Probability: 0.00153%
Kanye, it has been said, has an ego. As much as he hates the paparazzi, it's pretty clear that he thrives on attention. So when he hears that there's an opportunity to perform in front of 16,000 people, when he knows that the eyes of the rap world will be focussed on one stage in Toronto, that's where he goes. To step on that stage and bathe in the lights. Even if he knows one of his primary rivals will also be on that stage. Even if that rival has been taunting him subliminally through rap tunes over the past few years. And after the show, he sprouted wings and flew back to his own throne, which sits at the top of Mount Olympus, where pigs fly, and Air Yeezus sneakers rain down from the sky.
Kanye's just being Kanye: We don't know what he's thinking, whatever it is, it's in the best interests of Kanye.
Probability: 54%
Kanye's got a strategic mind and an undeniable track record. Every time he's reinvented himself, he's shifted the conversations we have about the genre, altered its parameters and our expectations. And he's remained dominant while doing so. The idea that he would concede the playing field to Drake, of all people—an artist who has clearly benefitted from his influence and stands on his shoulders—at this point in his career seems unlikely. Yeezus might be divisive, but it's still a celebrated, unique album, and suggests that Kanye remains as much of a visionary as ever before. You can't say that the record doesn't have its own aesthetic worldview.
'Ye may have given up the pop charts, but he couldn't possibly have done so because he felt he could no longer compete. Remember that it was just last year that "Mercy" was the summer's dominant anthem. His New York Times interview indicated an interest in moving into other fields, perhaps to prove that he can do what he did in hip-hop in any endeavor. Whatever his future direction, no way he abdicates the hip-hop throne—unless it's on his own terms. Unless he sees it as a prop he no longer needs.
Kanye's conceding the throne to Drake.
Probability: 3%
Every song on the radio really does sound like Drake featuring Drake. No one gets a guaranteed hit unless Drake makes an appearance on their record; even Kendrick's critically-bulletproof good kid, m.A.A.d. City showed this very 2012 hip-hop insecurity, in deference to the genre's current hitmaker. Is Kanye simply bowing his head and admitting this? That would be almost unprecedented in hip-hop.
It's not like Drake hasn't been sending shots at Ye for years. When he said "I feel like the throne is for the taking, watch me take it," in 2011. The year Watch the Throne came out?! And Kanye West, of all people, to just step aside? For the "only rapper compared to Michael" to step on the OVO stage, not as a headliner, not to close the show, but just to come and show respect, to kiss the ring of rap's new king? Could it be?!
Gossip-hungry, subliminal-diss-tracking, conspiracy-theorist rap fans win.
Probability: 100%
But what will we have to talk about tomorrow?!
