Drake is having a bad week. The rapper has more dislikes than likes on the video for his latest Kendrick Lamar diss, "The Heart Part 6." He also had a shooting take place at his Toronto mansion on May 7. The rapper was not injured in the shooting, but a member of his security team was shot in the chest. Drake's dangerous encounter was covered extensively by local news. The problem is, when it came time to name him, the anchor reporting the story made a colossal slip up.
The report was made on Eyewitness News ABC7. The footage was uploaded to the network's YouTube channel, and the flub can immediately be heard. The anchor attempts to set the scene of the shooting before throwing it to field reporter Darla Miles, but he stumbles when it comes time to describe what Drake does for a living. Instead of noting that Drake is a professional "rapper," the anchor mistakenly says that he is a "raper." "Lots of questions tonight," he stated. "About a security guard who was shot outside the mansion of the raper... rapper, I should say, Drake." Oof.
The NBC Anchor Immediately Corrected Himself
It's a deafeningly awkward moment to witness. Especially when one considers the accusations that have been thrown at Drake over the last few weeks. Kendrick Lamar has built most of his diss campaign on the notion that Drake is a pedophile who targets young women. He rapped about it on "Meet the Grahams," and he doubled down on the accusations with "Not Like Us." The latter is especially damning, with lines about Drake having sex offenders in his OVO camp and keeping underage girls in his mansion.
To be clear, Drake has denied these accusations outright. He addressed them on his aforementioned response, "The Heart Part 6." He dismissed the Compton rapper's claims as "false" information. "You would be a worthy competitor if I was really a predator," he says during the outro of the song. "And you weren't f*ckin' lying to every blogger and editor." Lamar has not provided evidence to support his claims. Regardless of the truth, the fumble by the ABC news anchor is not going to benefit Drake in the court of public opinion.