So you’ve heard about the beef between Meek Mill, Drake, and Nicki Minaj. Congratulations on using the internet in the last week. Still, some of you have, inevitably, let this news story pass you by. We totally get it; we all gotta sit some of these out.
The whole thing seemed tangentially related to the Taylor-Nicki beef, and really, if you’re going to pick one Nicki-related beef to care about in a week, the one where there’s even the slightest possibility that Nicki Minaj will make Taylor Swift cry is the best bet for your entertainment. You might have been distracted by Gawker’s implosion, or channeled your energy into more important outage like the Sandra Bland case.
Whatever your reasons, you’re probably here now because it’s embarrassing to just ask, “Hey so what’s the deal with that Drake and Meek beef everyone else is sick of hearing about now?” It takes too much time to read like six news posts on Complex, so let’s get all Vox-y and run this down quickly.
How It Started
Philly rapper, Nicki Minaj beau, and Uncensored Social Media Presence™ Meek Mill went in hard on a number of topics, Drake’s fakeness among them, via Twitter in the wee hours of Wednesday.
When Meek says Drake “didn’t tweet his album,” he’s referring to Drizzy’s lack of public support for Meek’s new album Dreams Worth More Than Money, where Drake guests on the song “R.I.C.O.”
Meek goes on to identify Atlanta rapper Quentin Miller as Drake’s ghostwriter — a claim that checks out when one consults the song credits on Drake’s If You’re Reading This You’re Too Late. There are other co-writers/ghost writers credited on various Drake songs as well, some of whom Drake has shouted-out publicly in the past.
Ghostwriting Rumors Escalate
Hot 97 host Funkmaster Flex got his hands on a reference track Quentin Miller supposedly recorded for Drake’s hit “10 Bands,” and leaked it on his show on Wednesday night.
“I got this from someone in Drake’s camp,” Flex said, adding that the source said Miller is on retainer for $5,000/month. “They reached out. They saw me keeping it 100 on [Instagram].”
Miller’s friend, OG Maco, lent credence to these theories; while Drake’s producer and partner in his October’s Very Own label, Noah “40” Shebib, came to his defense with a series of tweets. Not that using co-writers really matters.
Drake Readies His Response
Drake stayed silent across social media, with the exception of subtle shade: a leaked DM where he actually employs the sentences, “I signed up for greatness. This comes with it,” and a like on an Instagram video that slyly disses Meek.
Then, on Saturday during his Beats Radio 1 show, Drake dropped a diss track called “Charged Up.” Select lyrics below.
Opening lines: “I did some charity today for the kids/ But I’m used to it cause all y’all charity cases/All y’all stare in my face in hopes you could be the replacement.”
Another allusion to his Meek feature being a favor since the latter’s sales are so low: “Done doing favors for people/ ‘Cause it ain’t like I need the money I make off a feature/ I see you n***** having trouble going gold/ Turning into some so-and-sos that no one knows.”
And a slight diss of his longtime friend and fellow Young Money star Nicki Minaj for good measure, to show he’s not jealous of Meek: “No woman ever had me starstruck/ Or was able to tell me to get my bars up.”
Allow me to remind you of three (of numerous) occasions in which Drake has sweated Nicki very hard: his verse in her song “Only” where he details the ways in which they should fuck, her lap dance in the “Anaconda video,” and the five-year-old tweet below.
Nicki and Meek Aren’t Impressed
At Minaj’s Brooklyn show yesterday, she and Meek clowned Drake for “Charged Up” and his “signed up for greatness” comment. “That shit was soft, baby lotion soft,” Meek said of the song.
“Shout-out to Drake, let him be great,” Meek said at one point, adding, “but I’m still the realest n**** in this bitch.”
Billboard reported Meek as repeating his side of the story at the show:
“I was doing my album and I asked [Drake] to give me a verse for my album, but [Drake] gave me a verse that he didn’t write, that another wrote,” he told the crowd, adding that “Charged Up” was “very soft, baby lotion soft.” Nicki also got in on the action, briefly, telling the audience about how she too writes all her own verses — an allusion to both Meek’s allegations about Drake and her ex Safaree, who previously alleged that he wrote for her. “Y’all don’t even know how to pronounce the motherf—ing words in my motherf—ing rap, bitch,” she insisted.
Then Meek referenced Drake’s “no woman ever got me starstruck” line in “Charged Up,” which was going around social media this weekend with Drake’s history of sweating Minaj. “Make some noise for the girl that got me starstruck,” Mill said introducing Nicki to the stage before kissing her. Meek’s keeping the joke running on Instagram.
Feel free to go back to not caring now until Nicki releases a diss track that shows up both of these clowns.