by For the first time since Meek Mill called Drake out about using ghostwriters, Drizzy is now addressing the allegations.
In an interview with Fader, Drake said he immediately went to the studio following a celebrity basketball game after he got a call that musical shots were fired from Hot 97 DJ Funkmaster Flex, who claimed he had been given a number of “reference tracks” written and recorded by other rappers as proof that Drake used writers for his material.
“So we all circled up at the studio and sat there as Flex went on the air, and these guys flip-flopped [about how] they were gonna do this, that, and the third.” He then recorded “Charged Up” and debuted it on his OVO Radio Beats 1 show. After no rebuttal, Drake then dropped “Back to Back.”
Addressing the reference tracks, Drake said he uses them for collaborative inspiration. “I need, sometimes, individuals to spark an idea so that I can take off running. I don’t mind that. And those recordings—they are what they are. And you can use your own judgment on what they mean to you.”
Hip-hop/Rap has always been an art form that favors being authentic, shunning the idea of having others write for the artist, like other genres permit. However, Drake is ok with being the poster child for that conversation.
“If I have to be the vessel for this conversation to be brought up…I’m OK with it being me,” he said. “It’s just, music at times can be a collaborative process, you know? Who came up with this, who came up with that — for me, it’s like, I know that it takes me to execute every single thing that I’ve done up until this point. And I’m not ashamed.”
Read the rest of Drake’s interview with Fader here.
