The ongoing beef between Drake and Kanye West could’ve played out on the Verzuz stage—that is, if Kanye got his way.
During a recent interview with Angie Martinez, Swizz Beatz revealed ’Ye was willing to go hit-for-hit against his most prominent foe but says he and Verzuz co-creator Timbaland weren’t pushing for such battle.
“Kanye was willing to do the Verzuz … He wanted to battle Drake,” Swizz told Martinez. “I left that up to them, and that’s what I told to Timb, as well. I was like, ‘Yo, they have to bring that to the table.’ They would have to agree to do that. Kanye was ready, but I don’t know where that’s at now. I’m still leaving it on them.”
It’s unclear when Kanye expressed his interest in battling Drake, but it seems the discussions took place before their recent exchange of diss records. Earlier this month, Drake leaked Kanye’s “Life of the Party” track, in which he took shots at Drizzy and referenced that viral group chat in which he warned, “You will never recover.”
The leak came shortly after Drake took aim at ‘Ye in Trippie Redd’s “Betrayal” cut where he rapped: “All these fools I’m beefin’ that I barely know/Forty-five, forty-four (Burned out), let it go/Ye ain’t changin’ shit for me, it’s set in stone.”
Drake seemingly reloaded on Kanye in his Certified Lover Boy track “7am on Bridle Path”: “You over there in denial, we not neck and neck/It’s been a lot of years since we seen you comin’ correct/Man, fuck a ‘respectfully,’ I just want my respect/They tried to label me mean, I say what I mean/People that could’ve stayed on the team.”
The OVO rapper also took aim at Swizz in the CLB song, “You Only Live Twice,” featuring Rick Ross and Lil Wayne. The track appears to reference Swizz’s Instagram Live comments back in 2020, when he called Drake a “pussy” over an unreleased Busta Rhymes collab. Swizz apologized for his remarks shortly after, but Drake clearly had more to say on the matter.
“Unthinkable when I think of the way these n***as been acting/I never did you nothing and you play like we family, huh?” he rapped in “You Only Live Twice.” “Next thing, you wanna shoot me down, it can’t be love/Not sure where you was trynna send it, it can’t be up/That day you sounded like a b*tch, you fancy, huh?”
Swizz addressed the diss while speaking to Martinez, insisting he has no beef with Drake.
“I’m chilling. A lot of people want to see me react and do all these things, but I’m in such a great zone,” Swizz explained. “I said how I felt, he said how he felt. Hey, man I guess we even. As far as now, I’m good … and I actually like the song.”
He continued: “And he didn’t go too crazy in the record also, you know? He could have said many things, that man is a clever artist. He could’ve really, really, really gave me about 40 bars. He said what he said. He got it off his chest. Blessing to everybody.”
You can watch the full interview up top.
