Kanye West and Drake may be (mostly) all buddy-buddy now, but it wasn’t so long ago that they were feuding so fiercely that West asked some of his closest collaborators — including Travis Scott — not to work with Drake at all.
According to fellow Chicagoan and frequent Ye collaborator Malik Yusef, West apparently took to (unsuccessfully) banning his various peers and proteges from collaborating with the Canadian star. Yusef appeared on the Rap Today With Francis podcast, where he tried to explain some of West’s more controversial behavior over the past few years, including recent antisemitic remarks in the media.
My interview with #KanyeWest collaborator Malik Yusef is out! We talk about Ye being mean, working on the new album, possibly touring and the artist’s relationship with Drake and Kid Cudihttps://t.co/sGSG5JgDQr
— Francis (@francisnewyork) September 25, 2023
“I think [the antisemitic comments] were for Drake [who is Jewish],” he elaborated. “That’s what I think. I don’t know who else you would say that was. I have never directly worked with Drake ’cause Kanye asked me not to. He said, ‘Please don’t go work directly with Drake.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ ‘Cause Kanye’s brother, but I love Drake too, though. He asked Travis [Scott] the same thing, but Travis said no.”
As far as why Kanye had it out for Drake for so long, Yusef is as stumped as the rest of us. “I think that Drake loves Kanye, and that Kanye hates that Drake loves him,” he reckoned. “I don’t feel like him being angry with Drake has any credence, because Drake has been nothing but kind and good and a good student of Kanye, so I don’t know where the anger comes from. ’He took my style!’ Okay, cool. Drake takes everybody’s style. To me, Drake has his own unique style — it’s a hodgepodge of several different styles.”
Malik Yusef was an early and frequent collaborator of Kanye’s, appearing on Kanye’s debut album The College Dropout and on the GOOD Music compilation Cruel Summer. West also produced much of Yusef’s second album GOOD Morning, GOOD Night. Kanye’s ongoing dispute with Drake appeared to have been settled with their Free Larry Hoover concert in LA a few years ago, but if Yusef’s right, it appears that West may still harbor some resentment for his longtime frenemy.