Drake Confirmed As Co-Writer On Kanye West’s “Yikes”
On “Duppy Freestyle,” Drake’s recent diss track aimed at Pusha-T, he referenced his work for Kanye West, rapping, “What do you really think of the nigga that’s makin’ your beats?/ I’ve done things for him I thought that he never would need/ Father had to stretch his hands out and get it from me/ I pop style for 30 hours, then let him repeat/ Now, you poppin’ up with the jokes, I’m dead, I’m asleep/ I just left from over by y’all puttin’ pen to the sheets.” Drake was previously credited as a co-writer on West’s The Life Of Pablo cuts “Father Stretch My Hands” and “30 Hours,” and he was rumored to be part of the Wyoming recording sessions that birthed Kanye’s new album Ye. And now we know exactly what he was working on: “Yikes.”
Hot 97 host Peter Rosenberg claimed on-air last week that Drake penned the hook to “Yikes.” And now, as Pitchfork points out, updated credits on Tidal have confirmed that Drake worked on the track alongside 10 other credited lyricists including Ayub Ogada and James Mbarack Achieng, who wrote “Kothbiro,” the 1976 Black Savage song that “Yikes” samples.
Notably, Kanye himself was credited on Drake’s 2016 diss track “Two Birds, One Stone,” which took shots at Kanye associates Kid Cudi and Pusha-T. Of course, Push later responded with a few lines on “Infrared” from the Kanye-produced Daytona and the devastating “The Story Of Adidon,” claiming that he had enough ammunition to keep going all summer. But after a meeting between Kanye West and behind-the-scenes Drake handler J Prince, the beef was declared dead, with Pusha later confirming that “Surgical Summer” had been cancelled. It was fun while it lasted.