Kanye West and Drake’s feud doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon.
On Sunday, the 44-year-old star posted on Instagram a shot he later deleted, of a map detailing the purported location of Drake’s Toronto home, after Drake’s recent jab at him on a collaboration with Trippie Redd, in which he seemingly referred to West as ‘burned out.’
Drake, 34, didn’t seem to be upset over West’s social media antics, as he shared a shot of himself driving through Toronto on Sunday evening while chuckling in the driver’s seat.
The latest: Kanye West, 44, posted a Sunday on Instagram a shot he later deleted, of a map detailing the location of Drake’s Toronto home, but Drake, 34, laughed it off in an Instagram Stories post
On Saturday, West posted a shot of a group chat to his Instagram account in which he said he’d been ‘f***ed with by nerd a** n***as my whole life.’
The post came shortly after rapper Redd released the album track Betrayal on Friday, which features a diss from Drake that many listeners assumed was going after Kanye.
In his guest verse on the song, Drake seemed to call out Kanye by name and accuse him of being ‘burned out.’
‘All these fools I’m beefin’ that I barely know / 45, 44 (Burned out), let it go / Ye ain’t changin’ s*** for me, it’s set in stone,’ he raps, via Genius.
In stride: The rapper smiled as he drove through his native Toronto in a social media clip
The ‘Ye’ of his verse is ambiguous, and could be ‘they,’ but it certainly sounds more like Kanye’s diminutive nickname on the track.
Kanye is also 44 years old, increasing the likelihood that he’s the ‘burned out’ target of Drake’s critique.
It’s unclear why Drake brought up Kanye at this moment, though some have speculated that his continually-delayed album Donda may be inching closer and closer to the release of Drake’s album Certified Lover Boy.
According to Variety, some industry insiders and fans believe that West’s pushed-back album may be trying to mess with Drake’s sales.
Drake appeared to reference ‘Ye’ on Betrayal and called out someone who’s ‘burned out’ and ’45’ or ’44.’ Kanye is 44 years old
Fighting words: Kanye wrote ‘I live for this’ with a photo of Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker, while calling out ‘nerd a** jock n***as.’ A ‘D’ on the chat group may have stood for Drake, and he added Drake’s nemesis Pusha T to the conversation
However, Kanye is clearly continuing to work on Donda, as his second album listening party debut a considerably reworked version of the material.
Although his follow-up Instagram post didn’t specifically mention Drake, it’s timing coming after the possible diss suggests it may be a message to him.
In the screenshot, Kanye had a group text message going on with an earlier message that was partially cut off. Below it, he posted a sinister still of Joaquin Phoenix made up as the Joker in the the hit film of the same name. Although the names of the participants in the chat weren’t listed, their initials were displayed at the top of the screen, including a large D, which may have been Drake.
Kanye also added his friend Pusha T to the conversation just before sending his Joker photo, which increased the odds that it was directed at the In My Feelings rapper.
Drake and Pusha have launched verses at each other on and off for at least a decade, but their beef boiled over in 2018, when Pusha alluded to rumors that Drake’s verses are primarily ghost written on Infrared, the closing track to his acclaimed album Daytona, which was solely produced by Kanye.
Drake responded with the single in May of that year Duppy Freestyle, in which he referenced helping Kanye write some of the songs from his LP The Life Of Pablo as evidence of his writing skills.
Meaningful: Pusha’s presence was significant and suggested Kanye was calling out Drake. Pusha publicly called out Drake for ‘hiding a child’ in his 2018 diss track The Story of Adidon; seen in 2019
Only days later, Pusha released his response single The Story Of Adidon. In the scathing track, he accused Drake of being a ‘deadbeat’ dad and accused him of ‘hiding a child.’
The child in question was the hitmaker’s son Adonis, whom he hadn’t previously acknowledged and wouldn’t go public about until the release of his album Scorpion in June of 2018.
The Story Of Adidon also featured single artwork featuring a 2007 photo of Drake in blackface, though he later defended the image as a critique of racist depictions of Black people.
Kanye’s own feud with Drake appeared to start up during his ill-fated tour for his album The Life Of Pablo, when he ranted about the rapper and actor on stage.
Going south: Drake and Kanye’s feud began as early as 2016, but it escalated in 2018 when Drake came to believe Kanye was the one who told Pusha T about his son Adonis; seen together with Kenny Burns (center) in 2015 in Atlanta
Slowing down: Their beef climaxed with furious tweets in December 2018, but since then they had appeared to settle down; Kanye seen July 22 in Atlanta
In July of 2018 Malik Yusef told Rolling Stone in an interview that Kanye had heard Drake’s song March 14, in which he admitted to having a young son, prior to recording The Story Of Adidon.
The timeline suggested that he knew of his former friend’s child and may have shared the information with Pusha to use on his own diss track.
But in August 2018, Kanye denied leaking the information in an interview with Chicago radio station WGCI.
‘I’m ‘Ye. I got major things to do other than be telling him some information about Drake,’ he claimed. ‘I honestly don’t care that much, in all honesty.’
But in December 2018, the two were at it again on Twitter over a conflict about Drake’s request to sample one of Kanye’s older songs.
‘There would never be a drake without a Kanye west so never come out your mouth with a threat,’ Kanye tweeted.
Since then, the two have cooled down their conflict until this most recent outburst.