Lil Yachty’s alleged reference track for Drake’s solo Her Loss cut "Jumbotron Shit Poppin" is making the rounds on social media.
The alleged leak sees Yachty running through the 2022 track, the official video for which famously featured the "Summer Games" sequel denier rocking millions of dollars' worth of Pharrell's old jewelry, albeit with a number of small lyrical differences. Namely, the chorus-opening "We ain't even out in Turks" line is entirely absent.
Yachty, who also picked the cover art for Drake and 21 Savage’s first joint album together, hadn't addressed the alleged leak at the time of this writing, nor should he be expected to do so. Akademiks, meanwhile, has claimed that Metro Boomin is involved with the alleged leak, though no such claim has been confirmed. The alleged leak appears to have first surfaced via Twitter user @notbobbalam, who claimed on Sunday that they had received it "from a random Atlanta number."
Yachty, of course, has been credited as a writer on "Jumbotron Shit Poppin" since its 2022 release. In fact, Drake and Yachty are joined by 12 other names in the track's official writing credits. Her Loss' other Yachty co-writing credits include "Major Distribution," "BackOutsideBoyz," "Privileged Rappers," "Circo Loco," and "Pussy & Millions." The best-dressed rapper of 2023 also received several co-production credits on the album, including for "Jumbotron Shit Poppin."
To be clear, circulating alleged reference tracks when it comes to Drake is not the diss some seem to think that it is. Yachty, specifically, has been vocal about his work with Drake, telling Ecleen Luzmila Caraballo for Complex just last September that it "just so happens that one of my friends is one of the biggest artists in the world." Not to mention, and as we just established above, the credits for such work are publicly available.
To be even clearer, and speaking more generally here, a writing credit on any given song doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual being credited contributed substantially to the composition in question, nor does it negate the contributions of the main artist. A credit can come about by something as simple as being in the room and bouncing ideas at the time of a song's creation.
Furthermore, to still be hung up on songs that boast multiple writing credits ignores the fact that this practice is (and has been) employed across all genres, from rock (blink-182’s latest No. 1 album is a fine example of this collaborative approach) to country (Morgan Wallen’s "Last Night" counts four writers, none of whom are Wallen) to, yes, rap.
In short, sharing an alleged reference track proves nothing other than a straws-grasping approach being employed by some amid the battle for the Drakeiverse.
