On Monday, Billboard released the Top 10 to the Hot 100, with Drake occupying eight of the ten spots, thanks to his and 21 Savage‘s collab album, Her Loss. Fans would have thought that Drake, 36, and Savage, 30, nearly pulled off the clean sweep if you looked at Champagne Papi’s Instagram Story. Drake posted the Billboard IG post to his Story but used a series of emojis to blot out the artist and song at No. 1: Taylor Swift and “Anti-Hero.” “@21savage congrats my brother,” added Drake.
While some might take this as Drake being cheeky, he didn’t blot out Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ names since their song, “Unholy,” was at No. 10. Plus, fans claimed that Drake apparently stopped following Taylor (while others claimed he was still following her on IG). “Drake being petty towards Taylor because she blocked him on the charts… like bffr it was YOUR decision to release your album right after hers,” tweeted one fan.
“This is so funny lmao. Drake didn’t say anything when his fans were bullying Megan Thee Stallion this entire week, but I knew karma was gonna come for him,” tweeted another fan. “I’m happy people can see how much of a LOSER this man is and that taylor was the one humiliating that ego.” “I am absolutely not a Taylor Swift fan but can we address how corny it is Drake went out of his way to block her name and song above his on the Billboard list,” added another.
Adding to the shade, Vinylz – the producer of 21 Savage and Drake’s “Rich Flex” – chimed in. After sharing @chartdata’s tweet about how “Rich Flex” earned “the biggest debut US Sales week for any song this year, with 445k units sold in its first week,” he shared the Billboard Global 200. “The world knows what the real #1 song is,” he added. “No tricks on this side.”
This might mean that the rumored collaborative Taylor-Drake diss track won’t see the light of day. Ahead of the release of Midnights, The Sun ran a report claiming that they teamed up in 2018 to record a joint track that aimed at then-couple Kanye “Ye” West and Kim Kardashian. Drake had his beef with Ye, and Taylor’s feud with Ye and Kim over “Famous” is well documented. The publication reported that Taylor found the song recently, and while she is “totally over the whole thing now but this is one which fans will want to hear.” If the track is real, it might go back into the vaults – or into the bin after this recent Billboard shade.