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Drake has once again found himself at the center of a rap beef after deciding to go toe-to-toe with Kendrick Lamar, but he’s inadvertently ended up in the crosshairs of the estate of a hip-hop legend after using A.I. to get 2Pac to join him on a diss track.
It’s impossible to deny Drake stuck the landing after he decided to pivot from acting to rapping. He’s been one of the biggest names in hip-hop for close to 15 years and has done an impressive job holding onto the status since really bursting onto the scene toward the turn of the 2000s.
His ability to understand what appeals to the mainstream is a major reason he’s been a force to be reckoned with for as long as he has, although you have to be a particularly diehard Drake stan to genuinely believe he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as rappers who’ve garnered critical acclaim for their lyrical prowess.
That didn’t stop him from going bar-for-bar with Meek Mill in 2016 before ultimately managing to win their beef after putting the nail in the coffin with “Back to Back,” but he didn’t fare as well when he decided to butt heads with Pusha T a couple of years later before ending up at the receiving end of a diss where his foe called him out for hiding a child from the world.
You might think that experience would have dissuaded him from engaging with, say, a rapper who has won a Pulitzer for an album the board that presented the award described as a “virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism,” but it apparently wasn’t enough to stop him from deciding to take on Kendrick Lamar.
The feud in question kicked off around a month ago when K-Dot fired some shots in Drake’s (and J. Cole’s) direction while hopping on “Like That” with Future and Metro Boomin.
A couple of weeks later, Drake responded in kind with “Push Ups” (which also took aim at—and garnered a response from—Rick Ross) and subsequently dropped “Taylor Made,” a fairly baffling track that features verses from A.I. versions of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg taking shots at Lamar.
According to Billboard, that song led to Shakur’s estate sending Drake a strongly-worded letter directing him to take down “Taylor Made” while asserting it improperly infringes on the deceased rapper’s publicity rights, noting:
“The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac’s voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend to the Estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult.”
The estate has given Drake until 12 P.M. PST on Thursday to comply with its demands while threatening to file a lawsuit if they’re not met.