As the world waits with bated breath to see how Drake will respond to Pusha T's diss track "Son of Adidon," the Canadian hitmaker has spoken out about a resurfaced image of him sporting black face that accompanied the savage song.
If you're unaware of what's been going down and need a swift recap, essentially, Pusha T called out Drake for using ghostwriters, Drake responded with a light-hearted, slightly savage diss track called Duppy Freestyle and then Pusha effectively destroyed Drake's entire existence through his own diss track, Son of Adidon.
After Drake mentioned Pusha's fiancé in Duppy Freestyle, it seemed to push the Bronx-born rapper over the edge. Not only did Pusha fire shots at Drake, but he also made light of his mom and dad's failed relationship, his alleged secret son with a porn star and Drake's producer who suffers from multiple sclerosis disease.
However, not done there, Pusha also promoted the song with a never-before-seen image of Drake doing blackface, writing:
"Please stop referring to this picture as “artwork”...I’m not an internet baby, I don’t edit images...this is a REAL picture...these are his truths, see for yourself."
Plenty of people were shocked at the image and Drake's choice to sport blackface. While it was rumoured to be a shoot from the Jim Crow Project by clothing line Too Black Guys, their founder, Adria Aitcheson, denied this was the case:
"The photo in question was not from a Too Black Guys photoshoot however it did feature clothing from Too Black Guys’ JIM CROW COUTURE/HOUSE OF CROW collection which was released in 2008.
"The collection featured several graphics that highlighted the painful and dangerous period of the Jim Crow Era. Too Black Guys has a history of representing the black experience in an unapologetic way.
"Although this was not an image from any of our photoshoots, we feel that Drake, who is a longtime friend of the brand, was brilliantly illustrating the hypocrisy of the Jim Crow Era.
"The subtleties of Drake, a young black man, mimicking how white men used to mimic and dehumanize black people may be lost in a rap battle but we should not be distracted from the issues that are still affecting our communities."
After Aitchenson released the statement, Drake also issued one of his own in which he tried to clear up the furor surrounding the photograph. Taking to his Instagram story, Drizzy wrote:
"I know everyone is enjoying the circus but I want to clarify this image in question. This was not from a clothing brand shoot or my music career.
"This picture is from 2007, a time in my life where I was an actor and I was working on a project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast. The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment.
"Me and my best friend at the time Mazin Elsadig who is also an actor from Sudan were attempting to use our voice to bring awareness to the issues we dealt with all the time as black actors at auditions.
"This was to highlight and raise our frustrations with not always getting a fair chance in the industry and to make a point that the struggle for black actors had not changed much."
Context is everything in times like this and it seems that Drake was using the image to make a political statement. Regardless, it was a genius marketing tactic by Pusha T, who is firmly in the lead when it comes to beef. Let's hope that now Drake has cleared up the photo controversy, he can get back to penning his response to Pusha.