Taylor Swift’s Street Cred Is At An All Time High As Drake Dropped A New “Scary Hours EP” Where He Gave Her A Monster Shout-Out
So last night I had an event in Nashville and when it wrapped up and I was able to check social media like the brainwashed drone that I am, I saw the above tweet.
Color me surprised to say the least.
Why on Earth did Kelly want my opinion on what had become THE talk of the internet world last night after Drake dropped “Scary Hours 3: For All The Dogs Edition”.
Wasn’t this Mintzy’s lane of expertise?
For those that have no clue what’s going on, here’s the gist, via complex
Complex- Taylor Swift is the only artist who could inspire Drake to push back a release date, so says the 6 God himself.
The moment occurs on “Red Button,” the first song on Drake’s six-track Scary Hoursexpansion of For All the Dogs. At the top of the Ovrkast and Lil Yachty-produced track, the “Summer Games” sequel denier assesses his “decimated” competition from the perspective of being “the most decorated.” A few lines later, Drake’s extensive Billboard charts success is touted, a boast that naturally leads to Swift being favorably brought into the discussion.
"Taylor Swift the only n***a that I ever rated," Drake raps, adding that Swift is also the only artist who could "make me drop the album just a little later." By comparison, he adds, he treats everyone else like they "never made it."
Here’s what I have to say about this-
I’m not confused on is Drake’s love and respect for Taylor. The internet is buzzing because people go crazy nowadays if Taylor ties her shoes, but this should come as no surprise to anybody. These two go way way back.
I also know via a friend who is very high up at Universal (both Taylor & Drake's parent label) that the two of them recorded a joint diss-record going at Kanye and Kim Kardashian a few years ago while Taylor was working on Reputation and Drake's hatred for Kanye also burned at an all-time high. He said he'd heard it and it would have set the internet on fire if it was ever released. There's always hope.
- Speaking of Drake and Kanye, I guess that fued is back on. On the same song he says Taylor is the only artist he won't try to compete with for a release date, he called out Kanye for being a deceitful fraud and going back on their truce.
“Every time you need me for a boost, I never hesitated/ Every time that Yeezy called a truce, he had my head inflated/ Thinkin’ we gon’ finally peace it up and get to levitatin’/ Realize that everything premeditated,” he raps.
Then, on “Stories About My Brother,” Drizzy appears to subliminally diss Kanye while referencing him walking around barefoot, as he’s been spotted doing in Europe this past summer.
“I can’t wait for the day that you choose to retire your stuff/ Taking off the sneakers ’cause you tired of tying ’em up/ That one day you wake up and tell ’em, ‘Enough is enough’/ That’s how you gon’ find out you not Kobe Bryant to us [laughs]/ Man, you not Kobe Bryant to us… at all,” he says.
Joe Budden also faces Drake’s wrath on “Stories About My Brother”: “Imagine us getting our validation from an ex-musician searching for recognition/ Same story every time, they heckle in repetition/ I’m top of the mountain, these n-ggas still down at base camp, they planning they expedition.”
Noted snitch 6ix9ine catches a stray in his verse, too: “Y’all the type to catch a charge, head to the deposition/ And act like the rapper named after the sex position.”
There's also an Alchemist produced track titled "Wick Man" which sees Drake once again stirring the pot with Pusha T, rapping, “Man, I remember n-ggas was joking ’bout some tick, tick/ And now that rapper broke as fuck, that boy a statistic.”
- I'm old enough to remember when artists used to purposely release albums on the same date to compete and see who could sell more and chart higher. I remember before the planes hit the towers on that dreadful day, 9/11 was hyped up to be one of the biggest music album release dates ever with Jay-Z's Blueprint, Fabolous, Nickelback, Bob Dylan, P.o.d., Slayer, Mariah Carey, and Ben Folds all dropping albums that same day. There was also the famous 50 Cent vs. Kanye public bet on who would sell more of their sophomore albums in 2007, which they purposely released the same day. Nowadays? Artists shelve projects and push back dates so as to not have to fight for streams and chart positions. Sad.
But Taylor is just in her own league right now. You can hate her all you want, be sick and tired of the non-stop news cycle, but you can't argue the fact. She's got the biggest rapper in the world moving his album back a month so as to not compete with her REISSUED album, and then publicly outing himself and admitting it on a song. That's a monster sign of respect.
Her street cred hasn't been this high since she murdered that rap with T-Pain on SNL back in the day.
p.s. - my obligatory plug of the T. Swift Fix I made. (I need to make an updated version of this badly.)