The most newsworthy moment to come from Drake and Future's "Summer Sixteen" tour stop at Madison Square Garden, currently in its third of four consecutive shows, took place at the start of night 1, when Drake dropped an a cappella freestyle, during which he called out HOT 97 and its resident DJ Funkmaster Flex. "You see, they tellin’ lies on Hot 97, that’s how it goes / I told ‘em fire Funk Flex and then I’ll come and do your show / Plus me and Kanye, we just left out the studio / My first night in the Garden, I’m feeling like D. Rose," he rapped, eventually bringing out the new Knicks signee the following night.
Once he caught word of Drake's diss, Flex went on Twitter to announce that he'd respond on the air on Saturday night with "a story to tell." "Drake u gonna learn," he wrote. Indeed, Flex showed up promptly at 7PM tonight, and he had a lot to say about his Canadian rival. Many bombs were dropped, though none of them will likely have any effect on Drake's pivot. He first told the MSG headliner that "70 percent of your fans wear high heels. The other 30% are guys who wear sandals." The sandal slight was reiterated throughout the night, with diminishing returns each time.
He then addressed Drake's belief in his position as a top five emcee. While Flex admitted to Drake's skills as an entertainer, he maintained that the top five is inclusive only of those who write all of their own material.
Flex then delved into the controversy that led to all of the ghostwriting suspicions being waged against Drake in the first place. He claims to have knowledge that it was Drake who leaked a reference track for his verse on Meek Mill's "R.I.C.O.", which apparently proved that Quentin Miller wrote the verse. Flex says that Drake did this because Meek's camp suspected him of subliminally dissing Meek in the "R.I.C.O." lyrics. According to Flex, OVO then panicked and gave up the reference track in order to say, "Whoa! He didn't write it. This guy wrote it!" "In reality, you coughed up the reference track to not get pressed [by Meek]," explained the veteran DJ.
The rant then turned back to a controversial freestyle that Drake spat for Funk Flex in 2009, during which he infamously glanced at his BlackBerry while rapping. Flex recalls that Drake had rehearsed the freestyle before he got on the mic and says that he hadn't expected the BlackBerry to come out during the live session. Strangely enough, he then details how it was Drake's camp that requested that HOT 97 post a video of the freestyle -- purportedly in an effort to prove that, though he may not be able to freestyle, he at least writes his own raps. "You wanted people to think that you wrote your bars. Because you knew the day would come when people might see and question your pen,” said Flex.
Lastly, Flex revealed that a fight went down between Drake and Diddy -- presumably the same one that was widely speculated upon in late 2014 -- that left the arm of the OVO rapper in a sling. However, Flex explains that Drake's injury was a result not of Diddy's punch but because his security guard pulled his arm out of his socket in an effort to get him away from the Bad Boy CEO.
Addressing Drake's current "co-headlining" tour with Future, Flex said, "I wanna tell you something, Drizzy. Tonight, when Future comes out on that stage, you gon' give him that bag of money. You know why? Because you need him to be street. You need him on that tour.” As a fervent fan of Future's and as an attendee of night 1 of their show at MSG, I can say that this couldn't be further from the truth. Well, maybe the street cred argument is worth something, but this is Drake's tour 100 percent.
There's the "story" that Flex so eagerly anticipated over the past couple of days. Find anything revelatory there? Listen to the rant below, and tell us if Flex dropped the bomb tonight as hard as he did when he showed up on air without a promised Meek Mill diss track in hand.
