While Drake and Ye had a mutual respect for each other early on that slowly fell apart over the years. The 6 God’s “Best I Ever Had” music video was actually directed by Ye back in 2009, and Drizzy called the rapper the “most influential” person to his sound. Not to mention they joined forces with Lil Wayne for the incredible Billboard Hot 100 hit “Forever,” and Ye also contributed to production on Drizzy’s Thank Me Later debut.
By the mid-2010s, however, the pair went their separate ways and began sending each other cryptic shots. Drake appeared to take a jab at Ye and Jay-Z as they prepared to deliver Watch the Throne during a 2011 Tim Westwood interview, with Drizzy implying that he and Lil Wayne were getting ready to drop a joint record and that Hov and Ye took the idea from them. Things then escalated in 2011 when Drizzy said he was trying to “surpass” Ye, but fears of an escalating feud were quelled after the latter popped out at The Boy’s OVO Fest in 2013. Yet a year later, Drake clowned some of Ye’s bars on Yeezus, and in 2016 bragged that his pool was bigger then the G.O.O.D. Music leader’s.
While the tensions between the two didn’t appear to run that deep, Ye escalated the feud during a radio interview in 2016 when he criticized Drizzy and DJ Khaled’s song “For Free” dominating radio. The rant caused Drake to respond and express confusion over why Ye was targeting him, but he then still enlisted Ye to appear on his 2017 track “More Life.”
But by 2018, their relationship had completely fractured. Ye produced Pusha T’s “Infared” diss aimed at Drake, and is long believed to have been the one that told Push about Drake’s son Adonis. Push used that information for his killshot diss track “The Story of Adidon.”
Back and forths continued throughout the year, with Ye momentarily trying to broker peace between him and The Boy but to no avail. Eventually, Drake said “it is what it is” in an interview with Rap Radar, adding he has no intention of brokering peace with Ye. The feud then reached a head in 2021 when Ye dropped off Donda four days before Drizzy was set to release Certified Lover Boy. Both albums debuted atop the Billboard 200, but Drake’s effort came on top with 613,000 album units to Ye’s 309,000.
The two titans did then put their differences aside later that year for the Free Larry Hoover Concert, but on his 2023 song “Red Button,” Drake blasted any hope of a truce with the Yeezy leader.
“Every time you need me for a boost, I never hesitated/ Every time that Yeezy called a truce, he had my head inflated/ Thinkin’ we gon’ finally peace it up and get to levitatin’/ Realize that everything premeditated,” Drake raps.
Ye then made his side of the story known when he attempted to insert himself into Kendrick and Drake’s growing feud in 2024. Ye hopped on an unofficial “Like That” remix dissing Drake, before changing his tune in 2025 and showing support for Drake in the wake of the tumultuous feud.
“I’m never finna call Drake out of his name,” Ye wrote in a tweet. “I’m team Drake, 100%.”
