Status Ain’t Hood: Drake Won

Last week in this space, I wrote that I wanted Drake to lose his current feud with Meek Mill. In fact, I didn't just want to see him lose. I wanted to see him get his ass beat. I wanted to see him humiliated. That wasn't because I have any sort of ill will toward Drake or because of any sense in schadenfreude in hypothetically seeing the tough-talking former child star finally brought down. I wanted to see Drake lose because I thought it would make him better. Drake is already one of the most interesting and influential rap stars we've had in years, and rap is in a better place with him around. But he's been able to enjoy an uninterrupted sprint to the top of the rap pyramid. He's never really been tested, and he's never tasted failure. The closest thing he'd had was Kendrick Lamar mentioning his name in a song once, something he was still publicly sulking about before this whole Meek thing suddenly broke open. My thinking was that a rap-feud beatdown would force Drake to look inward and regroup, and that maybe getting knocked back on his ankles would bring out the best in him. But that didn't happen. Holy motherfucking fuck, did that ever not happen. Drake won, and he won easily. He looked like he was having fun winning. And now the only real question is whether Meek will be able to save any kind of face at all, how he'll recover from getting his ass kicked.

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