On “Duppy Freestyle” Drake begins his diss by alluding to Kanye West as “the nigga that’s makin' your beats” and mentioning how Drake helped Kanye on some songs that he had already been given credit for.

Push has a long history of defending Kanye and other G.O.O.D Music artists—which Craig Jenkins and Pusha discussed in an interview with Vulture the same day this song dropped, saying:

Jenkins: Going back to what you said about taking shots, I wonder if you feel like your label’s designated shooter sometimes. It feels like sometimes you sacrifice your peace to have other people have theirs.

Pusha-T: Always. I feel like that’s always it, that’s always it. And, it’s fine, it’s fine, but that’s definitely always the case.

Interestingly, Kanye wrote a similar line to Pusha’s “I want all of the curses” on the track “Reborn” off the collaborative album with Kid Cudi, KIDS SEE GHOSTS – released a week after “The Story of Adidon”.

I want all the smoke, I want all the blame

“I’m selfish…” could be a flip of Drake’s line “6 god, selfish with the love, I need all the praise” from his 2015 track “10 Bands” or it could also be an allusion to the “I’m selfish” line in the chorus of the 2004 Slum Village single “Selfish” featuring Kanye West and John Legend, with Pusha using that wordplay to say that Drake shouldn’t focus on anyone else but him with his responses.

Pusha and Drake have a history of beef dating back to 2011 when Drake threw subliminal shots at Pusha on “Dreams Money Can Buy.” Pusha’s beef with Drake’s label bosses Birdman and Lil Wayne reportedly goes back to 2001 when Pharrell didn’t get paid for producing Birdman’s song “What Happened To That Boy,” featuring Clipse.

The pair reignited their beef in 2018 when Pusha threw shots at Drake on his DAYTONA album cut “Infrared,” rapping:

The game’s fucked up
Nigga’s beats is bangin', nigga, ya hooks did it
The lyric pennin' equal the Trumps winnin'
The bigger question is how the Russians did it
It was written like Nas, but it came from Quentin

Drake responded to the ghostwriting claims on “Duppy Freestyle,” and also questioned Pusha’s hustling credentials, rapping:

Your brother said, it was your cousin then him, then you
So, you don’t rap what you did, you just rap what you knew

As Pusha explained in a follow up phone interview with the Breakfast Club, he wants to set aside these two focal points of their past beefs and instead address Drake’s character and relationships.

This song’s cover features a picture of Drake wearing blackface and making a jeering pose for the camera. The beat is from JAY-Z’s 2017 track, “The Story of OJ,” which also explores the topic of identity within black culture and features blackface characters in the music video.

This line targets Drake’s insecurities in being biracial—his mother is white and father is black. He previously struggled with his identity as stated in his 2015 song, “You & the 6”:

I used to get teased for being black
And now I’m here and I’m not black enough

Pusha disputes Drake’s proud claim of blackness, and compares it to a minstrel performer, appropriating black culture, instead of celebrating it. Charlamagne Tha God speculated on Twitter that this was a follow up to Pusha’s “Infared” lyric:

And they ain’t even recognize Hov until “Annie”
So I don’t tap dance for the crackers and sing Mammy

Pusha’s reference to Drake’s afro traces back to Drake’s MTV “When I Was 17” episode where he admits to having a “terrible afro.” It’s the same video in which Drake admitted to owning a signed Pusha-T microphone, which he referred to on his Pusha-T diss “Duppy Freestyle.”

Drake went on to rock an afro on the cover of 2013’s Nothing Was The Same.

Pusha’s album DAYTONA dropped on May 25, 2018 and it included the song “Infrared” which sent several shots at Drake. The same day, Drake released a response titled “Duppy Freestyle.” The very next day, Drake dropped a single titled “I’m Upset.”

Upon release, DAYTONA was well-received by critics. Online reviewing aggregator Metacritic scored the album an 86/100 based off 20 professional reviews, indicating “universal acclaim”. Many other publications have acknowledged that DAYTONA could in fact be “album of the year” – so Pusha’s statement may not be too far-fetched.

In comparison, Drake’s “I’m Upset” wasn’t received well online. Jayson Greene reviewed the track for Pitchfork, saying:

‘I’m Upset,’ which will apparently appear on the upcoming Scorpion, is Drake at his most bitter and listless […] But above all it is boring. Drake doesn’t switch up his flow, the minimal beat drones on, and we are asked to take a rap song with the chanted chorus ‘I’m upset’ with a straight face. ‘I’m upset’ is not self-expression; it is what you teach a toddler to howl instead of pulling someone’s hair. It is less a big mood than a glass case of emotion.

The same publication’s review for Drake’s Scorpion dubbed “I’m Upset” as “one of his worst songs ever”, supporting Pusha’s claim that Drake’s single did not live up to his own work.

Drake references to Gill Scott-Heron’s song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” and flips it against Pusha.

Pusha previously referenced Gill Scott’s song on 2015’s “M.F.T.R,” rapping:

The illusion of money we don’t believe in
You ask me, Tyga looking like a genius
I’m Kim Jong of the crack song
Gil Scott-Heron to the black poem
Woo, the revolution will be televised
‘Cause we done see all and they telling lies

Drake may have interpreted these lyrics as a shot at him given Tyga was previously signed to Cash Money Records before joining G.O.O.D Music Management.

Drake feels that Pusha isn’t a big enough deal to warrant a response. Push is almost one month older than Kanye West, making Pusha T older than his label head.

It’s also worth noting that Push titled his album DAYTONA because he felt like “he had the luxury of time.” Drake is now giving Push his time.

This line is similar to Drake’s line from his Meek Mill diss “Back to Back”:

When I look back, I might be mad that I gave this attention