Drake Intensifies Kanye West Beef by Leaking ‘Donda’ Outtake ‘Life of the Party’
UPDATE: Following Drake‘s leak of Kanye West‘s “Life of the Party,” Andre 3000 issued the following statement regarding his role on what became a diss track: “A few weeks ago Kanye reached out about me being a part of the Donda album. I was inspired by his idea to make a musical tribute to his mom. It felt appropriate to me to support the Donda concept by referencing my own mother, who passed away in 2013. We both share that loss. I thought it was a beautiful choice to make a clean album but, unfortunately, I didn’t know that was the plan before I wrote and recorded my verse. It was clear to me that an edited ‘clean’ format of the verse would not work without having the raw, original also available. So, sadly, I had to be omitted from the original album release.
The track I received and wrote to didn’t have the diss verse on it and we were hoping to make a more focused offering for the Donda album but I guess things happen like they are supposed to. It’s unfortunate that it was released in this way and two artists that I love are going back and forth. I wanted to be on Certified Lover Boy too. I just want to work with people that inspire me. Hopefully I can work with Kendrick on his album. I’d love to work with Lil’ Baby, Tyler and Jay-Z. I respect them all.”
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Drake intensified his simmering feud with Kanye West by leaking the Andre 3000-featuring Donda outtake “Life of the Party” during the Certified Lover Boy rapper’s guest DJ mix on Sirius XM Saturday morning.
The track — which was played at West’s private Donda listening party in Las Vegas before it was cut from the lengthy track list before the Atlanta and Chicago stadium events — was played in full on Drake’s Sound 42 guest DJ mix. Unofficial recordings of the unreleased track were quickly uploaded to social media:
In the lead-up to both Donda and Certified Lover Boy, the two rappers traded not-so-subtle shots at one another, with Drake reigniting their beef by delivering a verbal diss on the Trippie Redd track “Betrayal”: “All these fools I’m beefin’ that I barely know/ 45, 44 (burned out), let it go/ Ye ain’t changin’ shit for me, it’s set in stone.”
West responded with a since-deleted screenshot of a group text message that presumably included Drake, with West warning, ““I live for this. I’ve been fucked with by nerd ass jock niggas like you my whole life. You will never recover. I promise you.” The sender then added Pusha-T to the group chat, a nod to Drake and Pusha-T’s heated feud in 2018 that resulted in diss tracks like “March 14” and “The Story of Adidon.”
West later also briefly shared Drake’s Toronto home address on social media, which Drake referenced on the CLB track “7 a.m. on Bridle Path”: “Give that address to your driver, make it your destination / Instead of just a post out of desperation.”
On “Life of the Party” — which features a typically stellar verse by Andre 3000 — West takes further shots at Drake and references the group chat, rapping “I put Virgil and Drake on the same text / And it wasn’t about the matching arc’teryx or Kid Cudi dress / Just told these grown men stop it with the funny shit.”
West adds later, “Told Drake don’t play with me on GD / And he sent that message to everybody / So if I hit you with a ‘WYD’ / You better hit me with, ‘Yes sir, I’m writing everything you need.'”
West has not yet commented on the leaked “Life of the Party” on social media. Following the Sirius XM set, Drake posted a photo on Instagram captioned “Waste Removal”: