DJ Khaled sparked conversation amongst hip hop fans when he excluded Drake from a recent list of his favorite rappers. Given the pair’s increasingly weakened relationship, it was bound to be a talking point.

Khaled was in view of fans over the weekend, and they asked him on camera to name his top five rappers. Khaled didn’t name Drake, who would have been his first choice in the past , instead he named Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, Nas, Kendrick Lamar, and Rick Ross.
The list actually had six artists, not five, but Drake’s absence was the main talking point.

The situation gets more interesting because Khaled and Drake reportedly haven’t been on the best of terms in recent years. Khaled was once going to have two Drake features on an album that was supposed to drop a couple of years ago. But comments made during the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef contributed to the icy relationship between Khaled and Drake.

Drake later made a pointed comment suggesting he won’t appear on Khaled’s upcoming album. Khaled has not publicly responded, and two years later the project still hasn’t materialized.

But there is an alternative explanation. Khaled may have just been listing six artists he thinks are some of his favorite rappers. The moment itself doesn’t confirm that anything on the list was meant as a message to Drake. But reactions on social media suggest many fans are reading more into the omission. Given Khaled’s previous connection to Drake and the long history of his delayed album, the rapper’s absence has understandably become a major topic of discussion.

It’s unclear if Khaled and Drake will ever get past their differences. Drake’s relationships with the artists from the 2024 battle also remain a topic of conversation, with Future allegedly the only artist from that feud he seems to be on good terms with again. For Khaled, the bigger question might be when his long-delayed album will finally drop. For now, his surprise top-rappers list has given fans another reason to think about their relationship with Drake.

DJ Akademiks is digging up hip-hop history buried for 10 years as he offers his supposed explanation for how the Drake/Meek Mill feud came to a head in 2015. The back-and-forth between Akademiks and Meek Mill has resurfaced the conversation. Akademiks returned to the long-running Drake-Meek beef on his stream last night, saying a comment by Nicki Minaj had something to do with what happened between the two rappers.

According to Akademiks, Meek and Minaj were shopping at a designer fashion store when they got to the register. He says that when Meek told her he didn’t have the cash to pay for Minaj, she allegedly told him he would never be Drake. Akademiks also claims Minaj left the store on her own, and then Meek went on X, and what happened next started the infamous feud with Drake.

The account remains an allegation, not a confirmed explanation. The information provided has not been independently verified, and ultimately only those involved, including Minaj and Meek Mill, could confirm the story’s authenticity.

The beef between Drake and Meek Mill started in 2015 and has become a staple in hip-hop conversation. Meek struggled after the fallout, while the beef became a defining moment in Drake’s career. However, the two eventually made up and collaborated on “Going Bad,” signaling a return to a more cooperative relationship despite the rivalry’s tension.

Now that Akademiks and Meek are throwing shots again, the events of 2015 are back in the conversation. By reflecting on the feud, Akademiks has added another possible piece of context to a story that has been a hot topic in hip-hop for years.

Whether his version of events is what actually happened, however, remains unresolved. Currently, the designer-store story isn’t factual, but it is Akademiks’ version of the events surrounding the beef.