A History of Drake's Ghostwriter Allegations, Revived by Future & Rick Ross

Metro Boomin and Future announced their We Trust You tour, kicking off in July. Will the Toronto stop be anything like Pusha T’s last concert in the 6ix? In other news today:

• Billboard Hot 100 📈 

• History of Drake’s ghostwriter allegations & reference tracks 🖊️ 

• Examination of Drake’s war playbook on Metro Boomin & Rick Ross 🥩 

• Industry Insights 🔎 

Billboard Hot 100

The above chart shows Billboard’s Hot 100 ranking for this week. The Hot 100 ranks songs based on streaming activity, radio airplay audience impressions, and sales data—all measured by Luminate.

“Like That” notches a third consecutive week at #1 while J. Cole’s now-removed Kendrick diss track debuts at #6. “Type Shit” stays in the Top 10, and GloRilla’s song from her new album, “Wanna Be,” debuts at #11.

J. Cole’s Might Delete Later EP missed the #1 mark, opening at #2 with 119K album equivalent units for first-week sales.

The History of Drake’s Ghostwriter Allegations, Revived by Future & Rick Ross

The obvious Drake disses on Future and Metro Boomin’s We Still Don’t Trust You dominated the narrative post-release, but if you listened to the album in full, one song resembles a certain Drake hit. 

“This Sunday,” also known as the reference track for Drake’s “Feel No Ways,” being released almost a decade after its inception is nasty work. Future’s always had a writing credit on the Views cut, but now the world knows he conceptualized the lyrics and melody for the hook—not Drake.

A few days later, on April 15th, the alleged reference track for Drake’s “Jumbotron Shit Poppin,” recorded by Lil Yachty, was leaked to media outlets.

Rick Ross, never missing an opportunity to call Drake fraudulent, posted a story of “Yachty aka the pen,” dredging up the ghostwriter allegations that have plagued Drake for years.

Here’s a breakdown of the artists who have allegedly filled the ink in Drake’s pen.

What is a reference track?

Songwriters will record a reference track to illustrate how they envision their lyrics sounding. If the recording artist decides to use the reference, it’s at their discretion how much of the original they want to change, but they have to credit the songwriter. 

Ghostwriting is like buying an essay for school off the internet and submitting it under your name. Reference tracks are less common in hip-hop because songwriting plays a larger role in credibility than genres like pop.

The Weeknd

In 2015, The Weeknd spoke to Rolling Stone about giving songs to Drake for Take Care, initially meant for his House of Balloons mixtape, at the beginning of his career. “I was hungry…I was like ‘Dude, take anything.’”

“I gave up almost half my album. It’s hard. I will always be thankful—if it wasn’t for the light he shined on me, who knows where I’d be,” said The Weeknd, referring to Drake’s early co-sign. 

This adds some color to The Weeknd’s recent Drake diss on “All to Myself” (“I thank God that I never signed my life away”) about dodging the OVO bullet.

Majid Jordan

The R&B duo signed to Drake’s OVO in 2013 and both of their names have appeared in the songwriting and production credits of Drake’s albums. But in an interview with Hot 97, they shed light on the conditions of Drake’s 2013 songwriting sessions for Nothing Was The Same.

"They basically put us in the studio, it was like a studio camp almost, there were tents in there – 'make beats! stay in the dungeon! You cannot leave! You can't tell anyone you're working on this project!' Literally tents… real tents in the vocal booths, everything. I slept in a tent in the studio.” 

Majid Jordan was featured on “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” but you probably don’t know they wrote and produced the reference track, which became one of the album’s singles.

PARTYNEXTDOOR

Once is chance, twice is coincidence and third is…a trend? R&B artist Partynextdoor was the first OVO signee in 2013, who is known to have also penned reference tracks for Drake. 

In 2016, Party’s reference tracks for “Legend” and “Company” from Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late leaked online. It was controversial since Party wasn’t credited in the liner notes for “Company” at the time (he is now credited on Genius). You can hear both reference tracks below.

What does this mean?

Drake’s ghostwriter allegations are nothing new (cc: Meek Mill’s accusations during their beef), but Future and Lil Yachty’s reference tracks coming to light add to the stack of hits that Drake has created, at least in part, from other artists’ ideas.

Ideas from some OVO prospects that are lent at the beginning of their careers, when the songs they’ve penned will be a bigger success (and profit) if sung by Drake. It’ll be interesting to see if 4batz, who signed a one EP deal with OVO, appears in the credits of Drake’s next album.

“Push Ups” Is Just the Beginning of Drake’s War Playbook

It took Drake three weeks to officially respond with a diss track titled “Push Ups.” In a 5-for-1 special, he took shots at his many former collaborators who’ve recently dissed him (Kendrick Lamar, Future, Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, Rick Ross). But Drake’s art of war started long before his diss leaked…

Drizzy’s #1 heckler, Ye, said it best during his 2021 Drink Champs interview. “Drake don’t a diss like outright diss song where it’s a headshot. He’s gonna set it up like war. He gonna do stuff like live 5 blocks down the street from you, DM every single girl in your family, [and] every single girl around your family.”

“If he throws out a bar right here, it might be a bar only [insiders know what’s going on] but it’s all psychological right?” Ye said, concluding his analysis.

Never forget when Drake rented out a hotel room above Meek Mill at the height of their beef and blasted “Back to Back” on repeat all night. 

Your friend with a snap score of 100K works hard but Drake’s IG stories work harder. The subliminals he’s thrown since the civil war broke out are beyond the scope of this newsletter’s word count but here are the highlights of Drake’s sideline antics working in tandem with his disses on “Push Ups.”

Metro Boomin

Drake’s diss to Metro was one of the shortest on the track—”Metro, shut yo hoe ass up and make some drums, n***a”—but it’s a standout, largely due to Drake’s continued drum trolling on his IG stories. 

In a 24-hour span, Drake posted a deepfake of Metro playing the drums as Nick Cannon’s character in Drumline, a couple dancing to a Mariachi-esque remix of the drum diss, and a video of the drummers he hired playing outside Magic City in Atlanta. 

For context, Metro and Future were promoting We Still Don’t Trust You outside the Atlanta strip club one week prior. Diabolical work, if Drake has ghostwriters—50 Cent devised this play.

Rick Ross

Before “Push Ups,” Drake began his psychological war on Rick Ross by using one of his tactics mentioned by Ye—inviting Ross’ ex, Cristina Mackey, to his Big as the What? Tour stop in Florida.

Ross and Mackey had only announced their split weeks prior and Drake’s DM your girl tactics were speculated to respond to Ross’ unfollowing him on IG. 

Rubbing salt in the wound, Drake disses Ross on “Push Ups” by referencing the move as a badge of honor. “I might take your latest girl and cuff her like Ricky,” Drake raps before asserting, “Every song that make it on the chart he got from Drizzy,” belittling Ross’ career and personal life. Menace to society type shit. 

The beef between Drake and Ross continues to intensify. Ross swiftly dropped the diss track “Champagne Moments” in response, accusing Drake of getting a nose job.

They’ve since pivoted to beefing over who’s richer and whose mansion has more acres—in terms most people aren’t rich enough to understand.

• Donald Glover announces his final two albums as Childish Gambino. One of which will serve as the soundtrack to his film Bando Storm and the New World.

• Drake dismissed from the Astroworld tragedy lawsuit. The ruling comes shortly after his lawyers filed a motion claiming he wasn’t responsible for the security planning of the event.

• Gunna announces ‘ONE OF WUN’ upcoming album. Also revealing the cover art, the album arrives after the 2024 singles “Bittersweet” and “Prada Dem.”

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