A Canadian Rap Feud!

06/10/09 12:08pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Drake seems to be saying he has a beef with Kardinal Offishall in a video that's appeared on the internet.

In it, Drake says he has a problem with a Kardi spin-off of his song "City Of Mine" that Kardi released in 2006. In it, Kardinal included a verse that supposedly takes aim at Toronto rapper Mayhem Morearty, with whom Kardi has a beef.

"He did this thing on the 'City Is Mine' beat," Drake says in the video. "I can't say I wasn't aware of it, you know what I'm saying? He sent it to me, but I can't say I didn't agree with it, definitely.

"If he was going to do that, I would rather him do that on a separate track and just do a remix with me. We could have shot a video for it.

"I guess what bothers me so much about it is we could have been cool. It's like, yeah, I'm upset about the fact that now I feel like when I see this dude, I can't really say 'what up,' because if I do I feel like, you know, it's a shot to my pride. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to feel like a punk if I go up to you and say 'what up' after you tried to put me in a situation."

He does, however, mention that Kardi's "Ol Time Killin'" is one of his favourite records of all time, so maybe that will keep things from inflaming any further.

Morearty has said his beef with Kardi started because Kardi and Solitair "didn't really respect [his] artistry" when he was a member of the hip-hop collective Black Jays with them. Morearty left the group in 2005 and recorded a diss track over Kardi's "Husslin'." Offishall responded by releasing a remix of "City Is Mine" with a the new verse that's said to target Morearty.

"I always liked the song (shoutouts to Drake!) so I was initially disappointed," Morearty told the Hip Hop Canada website in 2006. "But when Drake showed me it was a bootleg remix, and dude was just on his dick, I was cool.

"As for my response, well I've never been that battle rapper and dudes should know, the music to me is my livelihood, and I take this very serious, so dudes can rap what they want, but your mouth will catch up to you."

Drake is currently at the centre of a major label bidding war, and is set to launch a lawsuit over an unauthorized version of The Girls Don't Love Drake, an "album" which features songs from Drake's So Far Gone mixtape that recently leaked onto iTunes. Drake didn't authorize the release and is still trying to get permissions to use some of the samples on So Far Gone so it can be sold in stores.

Al Branch, Drake's manager, told Billboard.com Drake has sent iTunes a cease and desist letter, and had done the same with Rhapsody and Amazon. Branch also said Drake will sue Canadian Money Entertainment, which released the album onto the sites. Branch worries The Girls Love Drake's release will result in lawsuits against the rapper due to its unauthorized samples.

"There were tracks produced for other artists that Drake rapped over that were not cleared," Branch told Billboard.com. "While some songs were original, this was meant to be an underground project and not a major release. We tried to get the project out through a new platform on the digital level, but we were stopped before we could get started because mixtapes are not allowed on that level."

Here's Drake talking about his beef with Kardi: