Perhaps, in several days or weeks or months, Drake will (finally) respond to Pusha T. And maybe that response, when it (finally) happens, will be amazing.
“Wow,” we’ll (finally) say to ourselves when we first listen to Drake’s brilliant and witty and petty and perhaps even mean response. “Drake wasn’t playing. He really gave it to Pusha T. Champagne Papi is, um, uncorked!”
Even the staunchest guardians of “real” hip-hop—the men (and women) found in barbershops and at Immortal Technique shows and buying Styles P CDs at Best Buy—will be forced to grudgingly agree.
“I ain’t think that boy had this in him,” they’ll say while lightly brushing the tips of their Tims with a pencil eraser. “He still soft as baby food. But that was impressive.”
And then, after this praise, everyone who listened to the song will go and find something else to do and something more interesting to talk about. Beets, perhaps. In fact, I imagine that, if Drake (finally) responds to Pusha T, most of the conversations people will have directly after (finally) listening to Drake’s response will be beet-related.
Either way, one thing that everyone (sans only the most diehard Drake stans) will have already decided on is that Drake lost his battle with Pusha T.
Of course, what constitutes winning and losing here is based on admittedly arbitrary criteria. Drake will undoubtedly continue to be a chart-topping, trend-setting and Rihanna-annoying machine. Pusha T will continue to do his protective-styles, luxury, drug rap thing for the people who appreciate that sort of music. By most objective standards, Drake wins—Drake won—by just continuing to be Drake.
But the rules here are just different. (If you don’t understand how or why, then, I don’t know; Google it or something.) And with each day that passes with him releasing Degrassi-inspired videos and posting frittata recipes on Instagram instead of addressing the hydrogen bomb Pusha T dropped in his tea, the fact that Drake lost becomes more and more of a fact.
And now, oddly, I’m in the mood for beets.