The tattoo artist who inked a portrait of Drake on Dennis Graham’s arm has spoken out after Drake recently joked about the tattoo on Instagram.
Money Mike, a prominent tattoo artist based in California, admitted to TMZ that the portrait on Graham’s arm was far from perfect, and said it was because Drizzy’s father was rushing him to finish. He also said it was done free of charge at Graham’s birthday party.
“I’ve been good friends with Bishop Don Magic Juan for close to 15 years and he invited me to Dennis’s birthday party randomly one night,” Mike told the outlet. “So I joined him. I went, sounded like a fun time, and I brought Dennis a couple bottles of some expensive champagne for his birthday. I’ve never met the guy before. Not a fan of Drake, but I figured it would be fun.”
Mike continued by saying that Dennis started talking with him about tattoos, so he gave him his number to make an appointment. Three days later, Drake’s father was in his studio asking to get a portrait of his superstar son.
“So in my defense, one of the reasons the tattoo isn’t the absolute greatest I’ve ever been able to do is because he was rushing me,” Mike said. “So four hours into the tattoo he was in severe pain, and he was telling me basically just to wrap it up. So that was like when I got to the hair. Once we were on the hair I was being majorly rushed, and he loved the tattoo. When I was done with it he was stoked, his family was stoked, his girlfriend liked it. Drake’s sister liked it, everybody was happy with it.”
He continued, “Once Drake found out about it, that changed. I know at that time there was another artist...and I know he was very much into his work, and I know Drake was having him go over some of his other work, which was done by some of my past co-workers. It’s kind of an unwritten law in the art world you don’t have somebody go over someone else’s work. So Drake, obviously didn’t care and in my opinion burned some bridges with other artists by doing that.”
Mike explained that once Drake’s Instagram slander actually caused Dennis to call him up and apologize, and said that Drake had been drinking when he made those comments.
“I could tell Dennis felt bad, you know?” Mike said. “He was caught in the middle of me and his son and obviously blood’s thicker than water.”
As previously reported, Graham enlisted Money Mike to craft a full headshot of a Nothing Was the Same-era Drizzy on his right arm, and his son didn’t take too kindly to the interpretation.
“@therealdennisg I was just sitting here thinking why you do me like this we family,” Drake captioned a picture of the tattoo, alongside several laughing emojis.
