Oh, Drake…Today, rap”s biggest malcontent decided he would take on a dead man.
This morning, he took to Twitter to express his “disgust” that Rolling Stone had knocked him off the cover for Philip Seymour Hoffman. “I”m disgusted with that,” he wrote in two Tweets that he has since removed (you can see them on New York Daily News” site). “Disgusted?” Really? Maybe “disappointed” would have been a more understandable and less regrettable word choice.
Drake tweeted: “I never commented on Yeezus for my interview portion of Rolling Stone. They also took my cover from me last minute and ran the issue.”
Then followed with this Tweet: “I”m disgusted with that. RIP to Philip Seymour Hoffman. All respect due. But the press is evil.”
Next came the usual declaration…and one that will be recanted next time he needs the press for something. “I”m done doing interviews for magazines. I just want to give my music to the people. That”s the only way my message gets across accurately.” He”s kept up that Tweet.
I’m done doing interviews for magazines. I just want to give my music to the people. That’s the only way my message gets across accurately.
– Drizzy (@Drake) February 13, 2014
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Drake notes “all respect due” to Hoffman and that he”s really taking on the magazine, since, obviously, Hoffman had nothing to do with kicking Drake off the cover… other than having the bad fortune to die. But Drake doesn”t get it: By even being classless enough to comment on it in this manner, he degrades Hoffman. Is there someone whose death would have warranted bumping Drake off the cover? Because it”s clear that he feels that Hoffman”s did not.
I know some critics who don”t like Drake”s rapping (I like him just fine), but they really can”t bear his attitude and, boy, this played right into that feeling and undid all the good his did to lift his reputation with his great job hosting “Saturday Night Live” a few weeks ago. His tweets come across as ungracious , petty, and churlish. Yes, he may have lost his Rolling Stone cover, but he didn”t lose his life like Hoffman did.
I have the magazine right in front of me: Drake still gets plenty of cover love with a big headline, ” Drake: At Home With Hip-Hop”s Lonely Prince.” just over Hoffman”s right ear.
As far as his contention that he never commented on Kanye West”s “Yeezus” album for Rolling Stone, that”s a legitimate concern and one that Rolling Stone needs to address, especially since the quote he”s referencing is a negative one. It”s made clear very early in the story that the writer is taping the interview so that should be easy to verify. About bumping him off the cover? Hopefully Rolling Stone told him about that in advance, but it happens. When I was at Billboard and we had to switch the cover at the last minute for a death or some other major event, we tried to let the publicist know.
The six-page piece, which is a lot of real estate in this day and age, allows Drake to grouse about the Grammys and the disrespectful way he feels the awards treat rappers and to get in a few digs at Macklemore for apologizing to Kendrick Lamar for winning the best rap album Grammy. Overall, it does a very level -handed job of showing off Drake”s excesses -I don”t know who thought photographing him in a claw-footed tub smoking a hookah was a great idea-but balances them with the background that explains why he feels like he still is the underdog with something left to prove.
Now he needs to prove all over again that he”s not a jerk.
Was Drake right to be upset?