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The beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar has been brewing for over a decade, and former SportsNation host Marcellus Wiley says it almost reached a tipping point in 2014 before the Toronto rapper forced ESPN to suppress an interview where he fired some shots at his foe.
By most accounts, Drake was on pretty good terms with Kendrick Lamar before the latter called him out (along with basically every other rapper who was big at the time) in his legendary verse on “Control” in the summer of 2013.
Virtually every artist who was name-dropped by K-Dot knew there was no actual ill-will and viewed their inclusion on the track as a badge of honor. However, Drake decided to contribute to his reputation as an outsider with a questionable grasp on hip-hop culture by making it clear he took exception to the jab in the wake of the song’s release and asserting he more than had what it took to go bar-to-bar with Kendrick.
He was recently given the opportunity to put that hypothesis to the test courtesy of the beef that exploded in April following a very lengthy build-up, and while the jury is still out when it comes to deciding a winner, the court of public opinion currently seems to be in Kendrick’s favor based on how the needle shifted in the wake of the release of “Not Like Us.”
You could argue Kendrick fired the first shot when he implied he was a class above Drake (and J. Cole) alongside Future and Metro Boomin on “Like That,” but the self-proclaimed 6 God really opened the floodgates when he dropped “Pushups,” which sparked the war of words that has escalated to the point of no return.
Now, the beef has gotten some additional context courtesy of Marcellus Wiley, the former NFL defensive end who spent five years as the co-host of SportsNation on ESPN.
On Tuesday, Wiley hopped on YouTube to address the Drake-Kendrick beef while recalling his time with The Worldwide Leader, saying the Toronto rapper sat down with SportsNation for an interview that was supposed to air before he hosted the ESPYs in 2014.
Wiley said Drake used a portion of the interview to call out Kendrick for failing to match his commercial success while making it clear he didn’t think Kendrick could hold a candle to what he was able to achieve (which, in fairness, reflected the reality of the rap scene at a time where Drake was on top of the world).
However, the interview never made it to air, which Wiley asserts stemmed from Drake issuing an ultimatum after realizing he may have made a mistake, saying, “You went on our show, dissed this dude, then hid behind your team, let them call our bosses and told them, ‘Hey dog, if y’all let that interview go, I’m not hosting the ESPYs.’”
Wiley (who, like Lamar, hails from Compton) also said he reached out to Kendrick’s camp in the wake of the interview to let them know what went down, and while he declined to issue a response at the time, it sounds like there was a reason he was armed with plenty of ammo to fire back with as soon as Drake decided to press the issue this year.