Joe Budden Previews "I Ain't Drake" Diss Track

The unlikely beef between Drake and Joe Budden continues. It all started when Budden harshly criticized Drake’s latest album, VIEWS, shortly after its release on his podcast. It now looks like Budden is ready to release what — going off the 30-second clip — sounds like a Drake diss track.

About a week after Budden dismissed VIEWS as “uninspired,” Drake was seen in the studio with French Montana, and French played a snippet of the collab they were recording, which still hasn’t been released. After some back and forth raps, the clip ended one line into what sounds like the start of a full Drake verse. “Pump, pump it up,” he raps. Many, including Budden and his crew, felt that Drake used the line to reference the 2003 hit “Pump It Up,” the biggest single of Budden’s career.

He’s still waiting to see if there’s more artillery within Drake’s verse on the French Montana record, but Budden was even more convinced that Drake’s latest solo track, “4PM in Calabasas,” premiered earlier this month on OVO Sound Radio, was filled with sly disses against him. He basically annotated every line of the record on his podcast and highlighted several lyrics that he thought were directly intended for his ears. A recap of each one of Budden’s annotations was provided by Complex.

Funnily enough, Budden was a huge fan of “4PM in Calabasas,” which also contained — much more obvious — shots aimed at Diddy. He felt the record was good enough to necessitate a response from the Bad Boy CEO, and as he also considered himself to be a target of the track, it shouldn’t be surprising that Budden has already gone to the studio to record a response.

Budden was playing new material on his Periscope today, and one song was of particular interest, as it clearly mentions Drake. No subliminals on Joe’s end. A fan was able to record a snippet of Budden’s presumptive Drake diss, and though the audio rip is rough, one can hear Budden rap the words “I ain’t Drake” several times. That might as well be the title of the song. It’s difficult to decipher each “I ain’t Drake” line in its entirety, though at around the :09 second mark, one can make out two consecutive lines that are intended to sting:

“My words ain’t ghostwritten, I ain’t Drake / That’s all gimmick, I’m authentic, I ain’t Drake”

Budden is currently prepping Rage & The Machine, a collaborative project with producer araabMUZIK. It looks like he’ll have a busy few months ahead, especially if he’s planning to drop his “I Ain’t Drake” song soon. Hopefully he doesn’t fall victim to the summer heat like Meek did last season.