What Happened To That Boy? (How BAPE Started the Greatest Rap Feud of the 21st Century)

We are witnessing the best rap feud since Biggie and Pac in the ongoing Pusha T/Drake saga. A few friends have asked me what’s been going on and why there’s beef in the first place. After explaining the SparkNotes a couple of times, I figured I’d do a deeper dive and lay out how we ended up here.

This will be broken up into two segments: Then (covering a much broader series of events) and Now (covering all that has unfurled within the past week).

THEN

Before being a solo act, Pusha T and his brother, No Malice, were members of the rap duo Clipse. My first exposure to Clipse was on 2002 track What Happened to That Boy by Baby (now known as Birdman — Birdman is Lil Wayne’s former mentor and he is the founder of Cash Money Records; the parent label of Lil Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment to which Drake is signed) and it is an undisputed JAM.

2006

Following the success of five solo albums and one collaborative album (with Birdman), Lil Wayne was featured on the cover of Vibe while wearing a pink BAPE hoodie. At this point in time, BAPE had become the signature style of Clipse.