If you’re unaware, LeBron James has a new unscripted TV series on HBO called The Shop, which finds him and business partner Maverick Carter sitting in a barbershop setting and talking with various celebrities about pretty much anything. Well on Friday night, episode two aired on HBO, and it happened to feature non-other than Toronto rapper Drake, who spoke about a plethora of things fans have been waiting to hear. Throughout the 30-minute episode, Drizzy spoke on his beef with Kanye West, saying that 40 went to Wyoming a day early and told him there was something funny going on. He also confirmed that he played Kanye “March 14” and asked him for advice on the situation and that ‘Lift Yourself’ was supposed to be his song.
“I ended up linking with Ye, and he sold me on this whole speech of like, 'I’m in a great place, I’m making money, and I’m a father, and I wanna be Quincy Jones and help you, but in order to do that, you’ve gotta be transparent with me. And you gotta play me your music, and you gotta tell me when you’re dropping. And I know you don’t like to do things like that,'" Drake recalled. "And so I was in the studio, guess we all kind of felt a genuine vibe from it. So I play him my music, and I told him when I was dropping.”
"He played me 'Lift Yourself' and he was like, 'Yo, you can have this if you want.' And I was hype. I started writing to it. And then he was like, 'Yo, you gotta come to Wyoming.' So Wyoming happened," he explained. "And then (producer Noah "40" Shebib) went to Wyoming early, and he was like, 'Man, I’m here a day early, man. Something’s off.' He’s like, 'This guy is working on an album.' And I was like, 'For real? He just told me he wanted to work on, like he just told me he wanted to give me beats.’” He continued: "And he said he wasn’t dropping until like October, November, something like that. And I’m like, 'It’s all good, let’s just go, and let’s just see what it’s about.' So I went and ended up pretty much spending the majority of my time working on his music, just trying to like cook up ideas for him.”
“By the way, Im in Wyoming and I play him ‘March 14th.’ I send him a picture of my son. I tell him I having trouble with my son’s mother. I wake up, and all these dates are out. Then the next two days, whatever, I wake up now to this text from him, passive like, 'Yo, I love you brother,'" he recalled. "'Lift Yourself' comes out with him just talking nonsense. Oh this guy’s trolling me. This was like a manipulative, like, 'I wanna break you' thing. So I said alright. I’m gonna go back to distancing myself again. I know what this is. Then, the first album drops. And of course there’s a diss song toward me that you produced, that’s talking about writing? I was just there with you as friends helping you, and now you’re dissing me. So I’m like, man, this is dark."
Then after that, Drake transitioned into talking about Pusha’s diss track, saying that he wasn't mad about his son coming up or his family, but the line about 40’s MS he felt went too far.
"People love to say, like rap purists and people who just love confrontation, they love to say, 'Aye there’s no rules in this shit.' But there are fucking rules in this shit," he said. "And I’m gonna tell you something: It’s like, I knew something was gonna come up about my kid. They had to add the deadbeat thing to make it more appealing, which is fine. I understand that. Even that, I was like, OK. The mom and dad thing, whatever. You don’t even know my family. But I’mma tell you, wishing death on my friend that has MS… I study rap battles for a living. Now when you mention defenseless people who are sick in the hospital, that passed away, that really sent me to a place where I just believed then, and believe now, that there’s just a price that you have to pay for that. It’s over. You’re gonna get… someone’s gonna fucking punch you in the fucking face. The shit’s done, the event’s over. I wanted to do other things. I didn’t wanna further your reputation or your career by rapping back at you and having this exchange. And that was it for me.”
Drizzy also addressed the mysterious diss track he had waiting for Kanye & Pusha T, and why he never released it. “I got home and listened back to it, and I was like man this is not something I want to be remembered for. This is not necessarily a place I want to go. By the way, hell of a chess move. The song I thought was trash, but the chess move was genius. Back agains the wall, I either go all the way filthy or I fall back and I kinda have this chink in my armor for rest of my time to rap purists, which is fine I can live with that. IId much rather live with that than the things I was about to say and the research I did against and the places I was gonna go. Not only for him but for the other guy too.”
Watch the interview (below).