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Jay-Z and Drake ended their intense dispute in the 2010s with the help of Elliott Wilson, as he revealed in a recent interview.
The back-and-forth between Jay-Z and Drake was one of Hip-Hop’s most notable scenarios for close to a decade, and veteran journalist Elliott Wilson revealed he helped squash their beef. “I got them back together, I got them to talk,” Wilson said during a recent appearance on The Bigger Picture podcast. “Around the time when Drake was doing the tour with Lil Wayne and they had a show in Queens, Drake came backstage and hugged me and was like, ‘I spoke to Hov. We’re figuring it out.’ He was excited that they had finally talked.”
The two superstar rappers had collaborated to great appeal, with Jay-Z appearing on “Light Up” on Drake’s 2010 album Thank Me Later after Drake teamed up with Jay-Z on “Off That” from The Blueprint 3, a year before. But on DJ Khaled’s “I’m On One” a year later, Drake threw out the line “I’m just feeling like the throne is for the taking / Watch me take it,” which many saw as a challenge to both Jay-Z and Kanye West.
The Canadian rapper quickly dismissed that idea, and the two would team up for the 2013 hit “Pound Cake.” But comments that Drake made about Jay-Z’s foray into the art world in a Rolling Stone interview (which Wilson stated Drake felt were off the record when he made them) rubbed Jay-Z the wrong way, causing the Roc Nation founder to deliver some heated bars directed at Drake on Jay Electronica’s “We Made It” remix. Drake would fire back on “Draft Day,” which led to the Reasonable Doubt MC delivering his own barbs on DJ Khaled’s “They Don’t Love You No’ More”: “N-ggas talking down on the crown / Watch them n-ggas you ‘round got you wound / Haters wanna ball, let me tighten up my drawstring / Wrong sport, boy, you know you’re as soft as a lacrosse team.”
The two would eventually settle their differences, reuniting on 2018’s “Talk Up.” When asked how he was able to help mend the dispute, with co-host Jeremy Hecht joking that he created a text messaging thread, Wilson replied, “No, just encouraging them to talk to each other, that’s all. I’m not Farrakhan. I didn’t put the play together [laughs].”
Check out the entire episode above.
