This story appeared originally in J. The Jewish News of Northern California, and reprinted here by permission.
From Tupac vs. Biggie to Jay-Z vs. Nas, rap beef — a war of words between rivals, set to music — is a staple of hip-hop culture.
The latest beef finds Jewish rapper Drake at the center of a rather unprecedented buildup that some observers believe has anti-Semitic overtones when viewed against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war and the upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents across the country.
“It makes no sense that the most prominent Black Jew in entertainment is going through this right now.” Y-Love, the Jewish rapper and content creator told J. on Monday. “I feel there are anti-Semitic forces at play here regarding the war.”
The beef started a few weeks ago when Kendrick Lamar — a Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper from Compton widely regarded as one of the GOATs, or greatest of all time — downplayed Drake’s status as one of the “big 3.” rapper in the world right now “Like this,” a song on Future and Metro Boomin’s new album, “We Don’t Trust You.”
The situation escalated over the weekend when Drake’s response, “Push Ups (Drop & Give Me Fifty)” leaked online. In the diss track, she mocks Lamar for his short stature, calling him a “pipsqueak” and saying his last album was a bust, among other things. Drake also takes shots at Future, Metro Boomin, The Weeknd and Rick Ross. Ross was quickly freed his own diss in which she repeatedly calls Drake a “white boy” (his mother is white and his father is black) and accuses him of getting a nose job to look less like his father.
The claim surprised many people, including Drake’s Jewish mother, Sandy Graham. He texted him to ask if the rumor was true.
“I can’t believe you would get one without me cause you know I always wanted one,” Drake wrote in a message that shared on his Instagram story. He replied, “I would have gotten us a 2 to 1 offer if I had gone mom.” He went on to call Ross “angry and racist.”
There is a history of Jews and rhinoplasty that Ross may or may not have known. In his Instagram story, Ross also referred to Drake’s crew, OVO, as the Pastrami Posse another possibly coded reference to Drake’s Jewishness.
Ross, who is not Jewish, seems to have a fascination with Judaism. In 2012 he released a mixtape titled “The Black Bar Mitzvah” which invokes Jewish stereotypes about wealth. One of the featured artists on the mixtape was none other than Drake, who contributed a verse to the song “Us.”
Drake has long incorporated his Jewish identity into his music and public life. The video for his 2012 song “HYFR” was was shot in a Miami synagogueand interpreted in a bar mitzvah sketch when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2014.
He has not made extensive public remarks about the Israel-Hamas war. In late October, he was one of more than 200 Jewish and non-Jewish artists who signed an open letter to President Joe Biden for supporting the ceasefire.
However, in recent months he has been targeted because of his Jewish identity. In December, rapper Slim Thug referenced Drake during a social media rant about Jewish involvement in the music industry.
“Jews should own Drake – Drake is Jewish,” he said she said on Instagram. “Jews must have Jewish music. I don’t like that Jews have black music. I don’t want Jews who are not part of the culture to own the culture. I just want black people to have black music.” (In 2022 during his anti-Semitic meltdown, rapper Ye he claimed no evidence that “Jews possessed the Black voice”.)
Y-Love criticized both Thug and Ross for suggesting, in different ways, that Black Jews should pick a side. “When Rick Ross calls him ‘white,’ it’s the idea that you’re not really black because you’re Jewish, you’re not really black because you had a bar mitzvah,” he said. “Now you’re talking about noses. It’s not okay.”
He added that he doesn’t think Ross is anti-Semitic or that anti-Semitism is endemic in hip-hop.
“Hip-hop holds a mirror up to society at large,” he said. “If anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise around the world, if anti-Semitic sentiment is on the rise around the world, it wouldn’t make sense not to hear kids rhyming about it in a studio, and that’s what’s happening.”
Is he worried that the beef will lead to real-world violence, like it did with Tupac Shakur and the Notorious BIG, who were both killed in shootings in the late 1990s?
“Biggie and Tupac were very young at that point. Everyone involved in this is over 35,” he said with a laugh. “No one really goes out into the streets to fight.”
