Drake has responded to the blackface photo of himself that Pusha T used as the cover art for his recently released diss track “The Story of Adidon.”
“I know everyone is enjoying the circus but I want to clarify this image in question,” the Grammy winner, 31, wrote in a statement posted on his Instagram Story on Wednesday, May 30. “This was not from a clothing brand shoot or my music career. This picture is from 2007, a time in my life where I was an actor and I was working on a project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast. The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment.”
Drake said he and his Degrassi: The Next Generation costar and then-best friend Mazin Elsadig “were attempting to use our voice to bring awareness to the issues we dealt with all the time as black actors at auditions.” He added, “This was to highlight and raise our frustrations with not always getting a fair chance in the industry and to make a point that the struggle for black actors had not changed much.”
Pusha T, 41, released “The Story of Adidon” on Tuesday, May 29, and told his 1.5 million Twitter followers that the blackface image was a “real picture.” In the song, he claims that the “God’s Plan” rapper secretly fathered a baby with former porn star and French artist Sophie Brussaux, in addition to taking aim at Drake’s father, Dennis Graham, and his longtime producer, Noah “40” Shebib. (Graham later called out Wendy Williams for siding with Pusha T, writing on Instagram, “You know nothing about Drake or Myself, Do your research before you try and be funny to your 79 capacity audience.)
Many Twitter users were less than impressed with Drake’s response to the blackface controversy on Wednesday evening, with some pointing out that he did not directly call out Pusha T nor address the allegation that he has a son.
“Drake… putting out a STATEMENT is literally the WORST way to respond in a rap battle,” one critic tweeted. Another wrote, “Drake going the Notepad screenshot route is a step in the very wrong direction.”
Drake… putting out a STATEMENT is literally the WORST way to respond in a rap battle, 🤦🏽♂️
Where’s the BACK2BACK pt.2?
— #LastDon | #SC3 July 21st (@JohnJohnDaDon) May 31, 2018
Drake going the Notepad screenshot route is a step in the very wrong direction.
— Trent (@BarstoolTrent) May 31, 2018
Yikes Drake had to drop a whole statement about the blackface thing, Pusha definitely left his mark in this battle
— Okera J (Super Bowl Champions) (@OkeraJ) May 31, 2018
Drake has been silent on so many political issues, so his point that the image was for political reasons is not believable.
Plus I can’t see how blackface could be used for the effect he described 😐
— socrates (@reinakayla_) May 31, 2018
Drake should’ve said he was on Ambien for that black face photo shoot. pic.twitter.com/ee7z0oUeTT
— M’BlockU (@rodimusprime) May 31, 2018
