Redeem now - There's a newly viral photo of Drake wearing blackface.
- The photo is from 2008 and taken for a fashion photo shoot.
- The rapper Pusha T, who's feuding with Drake, revived it for the cover of his diss track "The Story of Adidon," where he says Drake has a secret child and is insecure about his blackness.
- Some people are upset with Drake for wearing blackface, others are more forgiving.
In 2008, Drake appeared in blackface in a photo shoot for the Canadian fashion label Too Black Guys. The photos, taken by David Leyes, were for a line released that year called Jim Crow Couture, which was meant to be a form of artistic criticism on the Jim Crow era of American history.
The photos were relatively obscure until last year, but now they're going viral. Pusha T, a rapper and president of Kanye West's record label GOOD Music, is in a feud with Drake, and he's weaponized the blackface images.
Tuesday night, Pusha T released his single "The Story of Adidon" and used Drake's blackface photo as its cover on Soundcloud.
It's a vicious diss track. In it, he accuses Drake of abandoning a secret child he had with the pornographic actress Sophie Brussaux, claims Drake's songs are ghostwritten, and mocks him for being insecure about his blackness (Drake is biracial).
On Wednesday night, Drake posted a screenshot of the Notes app in an Instagram story where he confirmed the origin of the images.
"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," he wrote. "The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment."
Drake didn't address allegations that he had a secret child with Brussaux, or any of the other charges in Pusha T's song.
Adrian Aitcheson, a founder of Too Black Guys, released his own statement explaining the context for the photos.
"The subtleties of Drake, a young black man, mimicking how white men used to mimic and dehumanize black people may be lost in a rap battle," Aitcheson wrote. "But we should not be distracted from the issues that are still affecting our communities."
"The Story of Adidon" had wide reverberations in the hip-hop community Tuesday night on Wednesday. Even as the origin of the blackface photos was quickly identified, they were still shocking.
Many were shaken by the photos.
—Nationally Progressive 💚🧡 (@PastorFaithful) May 30, 2018 —WHLE (@UwontBut_DWill) May 30, 2018—raweezy (@habibitingz) May 30, 2018Some people figured out the context for the blackface photos and were OK with it.
—King Of New York (@Phoreign) May 30, 2018But others were less forgiving.
—Click Bait Bro (@oldmanebro) May 30, 2018Since Pusha T drew attention to the photos Tuesday night, they've been taken down from David Leyes's website. Instagram also removed Pusha T's post with the photo from its platform. Leyes himself, meanwhile, said the concept for the photoshoot was Drake's idea and defended the vision behind it.
The feud between Pusha T and Drake goes back several years. It can be traced back to a 2006 dispute between Pusha T and Lil Wayne over a streetwear brand Wayne wore on the cover of a magazine. It eventually drew in Drake, who's loyal to Lil Wayne and was signed on to his record label.
Pusha T revived the feud with the diss track "Infrared" on his new album "Daytona." Drake responded a few hours later with his own track, "Duppy Freestyle." In retaliation, Pusha released "The Story of Adidon," his most personal attack yet.
It's up to Drake now if he wants to respond with his own track.
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