Yet another hip-hop icon has weighed in on Yasiin Bey’s controversial comments about Drake, and this time, it’s one of Bey’s own peers in the so-called “conscious rap” movement of the late ’90s and early 2000s. However, if you expected Common to side with his frequent collaborator against the Toronto star — with whom Common once shared a contentious back-and-forth with Drake resulting in at least two presumed diss tracks — you might be surprised by his response.
Appearing on Ebro In The Morning on New York’s Hot 97 Wednesday morning (January 24), the Chicago rapper shared his take after being asked for his opinion by host Ebro Darden. “I think Drake comes from hip-hop,” he said, in more-or-less direct contradiction to Bey’s viewpoint. “When I first heard him rhyming, I was like, ‘Yo, this dude rhyming.’ And if he goes out and makes songs that are popular, then that’s what it is. He’s still an MC… The dude is an incredible songwriter, he’s an incredible artist… You gotta have some respect and know that this dude is a very talented artist.”
After the host’s joked that Yasiin’s take was “very on-brand for him,” Common was also very complimentary to his rapper-turned-actor, saying, “He has poetry within his rap. He can style on anything. He can do a lot.”
Bey set of days of intense debate within the hip-hop world when he said during an interview, “Drake is pop to me, in the sense like, if I was in Target in Houston and I heard a Drake song… it feels like a lot of his music is compatible with shopping.” While some hip-hop heads (mostly those who likely stopped listening to new rap music sometime in 2005) agreed, others felt that the take was unfair to Drake or idealized hip-hop as an artform, since early rappers were equally as materialistic in their music.
Meanwhile, Drake himself pointed out that he could never NOT be hip-hop, using an old Method Man quote as an example and pointing out the hypocrisy inherent in Bey’s comments as someone who once fought for the expansion of artistic expression in hip-hop. “What umi say again?” he wrote, nodding to Bey’s 1999 single “Umi Says,” in which Bey sings, “My Umi said shine your light on the world / Shine your light for the world to see.”
Of course, there’s also Lil Wayne’s take, which simplified all Drake hate down to one simple reason.
Watch Common’s interview with Ebro In The Morning above.