Kanye West apologized to Drake in a series of tweets yesterday. Last week, he expressed remorse for his outlandish “slavery sounds like a choice” comments on TMZ. I won’t call that one a proper apology because in classic New Kanye form, he didn’t exactly admit he was wrong. He apologized “that it hurt people’s feelings.”
This is what he said to Chicago’s WGCI radio:
“I have never really approached or addressed the slavery comment fully. And it’s not something for me to overly intellectualize. This is something about the fact that it hurt people’s feelings and the way that I presented that piece of information. I could present in a way more calm way, but I was ramped up. And I apologize. That happens sometimes when people are — I’m not blaming mental health, but I’m explaining mental health.”
I’m not sure how you reduce hundreds of years of dehumanization and the most horrific tragedy in your country’s history, which still negatively affects the black American community to this day, as a CHOICE in a “more calm way” but OK. I’ve written before about Kanye’s mental health and while it should be something we speak of sensitively and with care, it is not an excuse for supporting hatred and ignorance. But since Kanye does bring up his mental health, it sounds like he’s at least trying to get help. I’m widely speculating here but if Kanye is in therapy sessions or speaking to professionals about his health, it could explain why he is suddenly saying sorry for his summer of harmful behaviour. Repentance is one of the steps to recovery, right?
Which brings me to Drake. Kanye West and Drake used to be close. They used to be neighbours who would playfully throw jabs at each other about who had the bigger pool. Drake used to come home and find Kanye in his kitchen randomly hanging out with his mom. There used to be cute anecdotes like that about Drake and Kanye’s friendship. They were also working on a joint album. Enter Pusha T. Kanye produced his latest album. They have also been friends for years. As we know, Drake and Pusha do not get along, to put it mildly, and there were rumours that it was Kanye who leaked the information about Drake’s kid to Pusha. If you need a refresher on “The Story of Adidon” and the Drake/Pusha beef, click here and here and here. There has been a lot. But Drake and Kanye’s problems started with someone else.
This was Kanye’s second tweet in his Sorry Drake series:
Let me start by apologizing for stepping on your release date in the first place … We were building a bond and working on music together including squashing the issues with Cudi at our office.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 5, 2018
Remember the Drake/ Kid Cudi beef? Sounds like it affected Kanye and Drake’s relationship. Sounds like Kanye and Drake’s friendships all trace back to Drake’s beefs. As for the “stepping on the album release” part, Kanye dropped Ye a little unexpectedly weeks before Scorpion. He then rolled out albums from Teyana Taylor, Nas, Kid Cudi and Pusha T all during what should have been Drake’s Scorpion press cycle. None of those albums did as well as Scorpion so you could argue that they didn’t “step on” his release too much After Pusha T dropped Daytona with a few bars directed at Drake, Drake hit back with “Duppy Freestyle.” And we all know what happened after that. Kanye produced the track on Daytona with shots directed at Drake. He’s sorry about that.
since we were building as friends and brothers I should have spoken to Pusha about the Quentin Miller bar. There should have been no songs with my involvement that had any negative energy towards you
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 5, 2018
Then, Kanye directly addresses the rumours that he told Pusha T about Drake’s secret son.
I did not have any conversations about your child with Pusha. I don’t play with the idea of people’s children after I spoke to Wiz a few years earlier.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 5, 2018
I’m not going to get into the Wiz stuff. It’s too much. Kanye is doing THE MOST in these tweets. If you want full context, Vogue has an extensive breakdown of Kanye’s Twitter spree. The bottom line is that he clearly feels like he broke Drake’s trust and he wants to gain it back. The timing feels weird considering that conspiracy theory about Drake f-cking Kim was floating around this week but it’s almost a nice sentiment. His apology to Drake is better than his one about degrading the history of his ancestors. He admits he f-cked up and is asking for forgiveness. WHY he’s not doing this in a series of text messages instead of tweets is beyond me but with Kanye, I guess you take what you can get.
When Kanye’s world started to unravel a few months ago and celebrities were unfollowing him in droves, I wrote about what would happen if he lost the support of the hip-hop community. Right now, Drake is the most successful artist in hip-hop. It’s nice to think that Kanye’s intentions are genuine but a reunion with Drake is also good for business. As we wrote then, hip-hop is all about all about collaboration and community. He needs Drake but does Drake need him? Drake has yet to respond to Kanye’s rant but here’s the last tweet in Kanye’s apology:
This is all Jedi level. I will be coming to your show within the next seven days to give love and be inspired by the art you have created.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 5, 2018
Is Drake going to forgive Kanye? Does he bring Kanye on stage at that show to officially make up? If he does, what does Drake have to gain by realigning himself with Kanye West – other than headlines? I’m already fascinated by how this is going to play out.