Drake responds to culture vulture claims: “My intentions are pure”
Drake has long been hit with allegations of being a “culture vulture” due to his many collaborations. On the flip side, Drizzy completely disagrees with that notion and admits he’s sensitive when the subject is brought up.
Speaking to Bobbi Althoff, Drake touched on people blaming him for certain situations when he doesn’t feel that’s the case.
“What I’m really trying to say is I feel like I’m not necessarily a part of the problem,” he said on Not This Again. “And I experience a lot of guilt-tripping in my life where people are like, ‘No, this is your fault,’ essentially, and my intentions are pure.”
Drake’s comments led him to bring up the “culture vulture” allegations, denying he has any negative intentions.
“It’s the same way even in music,” people will be like, ‘Oh, you’re a culture vulture,’ or people will describe the collaborative efforts that I’ve put forth and the artists that I’ve picked up and lifted up or shined a light on as me taking, you know?” he said. “They’ll put a negative spin on it and try and tell me that it’s a self-serving thing or whatever, and I think I get really sensitive about that.”
These allegations formed a major part of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us‘ diss track, in which he accused Drake of using rappers from Atlanta to benefit his career.
In one of the verses, he rapped, “You run to Atlanta when you need a check balance/ Let me break it down for you, this the real n*gga challenge/ You called Future when you didn’t see the club/ Lil Baby helped you get your lingo up.”
He continued, “21 gave you false street cred/ Thug made you feel like you a slime in your head/ Quavo said you can be from Northside/ 2 Chainz say you good, but he lied/ You run to Atlanta when you need a few dollars/ No, you not a colleague, you a fuckin’ coloniser.”
Rick Ross also called out Drake for biting other rappers’ flows while mentioning his skin colour. On his diss track ‘Champagne Moments‘, he rapped, “Flow is copy-and-paste, Weezy gave you the juice/ Another White boy at the park wanna hang with the crew.”