We think it’s safe to say the previous 48 hours haven’t been particularly easy on Drake.
It all started when Drizzy got a little big for his britches and decided to attack Pusha T with an exceedingly lame diss track.
King Push was quick to send Aubrey back to the kids’ table with one of the most punishing verses in recent memory.
In the “The Story of Adidon,” Pusha went after his rival like a DA prosecuting an open-and-shut case.
Anyone who listened to the track came away with the impression that Drake had committed a number of unforgivable crimes against his fans, against his loved ones, and against hip-hop culture.
Push rattles off a laundry list of offenses, but the most egregious are made clear right from the start.
In his opening salvo, the surgical emcee accuses Drake of being a deadbeat dad, hiding his son from the world and refusing to acknowledge the adult film star with whom he fathered the child.
But the allegation Drake might have the hardest time explaining away comes not in the lyrics to the song, but in its cover art:
As you can see, that’s a photo of Drake wearing blackface makeup.
Rumors about the origin of the image began to circulate immediately after the song’s release, and while accounts differed widely, all were in agreement that it was a very, very bad look.
Last night, Drake attempted to clear the air with a lengthy description of the photo’s context:
“I know everyone is enjoying the circus but I want to clarify this image in question,” he wrote.
“This was not from a clothing brand shoot or my music career.
“This picture is from 2007, a time in my life where I was an actor and I was working on a project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast.”
“The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment,” Drake continued.
“Me and my best friend at the time, Mazin Elsadig, who is also an actor from Sudan, were attempting to use our voice to bring awareness to the issues we dealt with all the time as black actors at auditions.”
The revelation that the photos were taken as part of a political statement and not — as initially rumored — an advertisement for a clothing line has prompted some detractors to give Drake a pass.
Though the consensus remains that the photo was in very poor taste.
Now, fans are clamoring for Drake’s response to the negligent parenting allegations.
Something tells us it’ll be quite sometime before Drizzy sounds off on that matter.
