A-list producer Boi-1da sent out a tweet today regarding simmering tensions between Drake and an unnamed artist. "One dude is selling out Madison Square Garden 4 nights," he wrote, "And the other dude trolling for attention & record sales. There's levels to this." The first dude, of course, is Drake, whose "Summer Sixteen" tour, featuring Future as a co-headliner, just ran through four sold-out shows at the Garden. Now it's not definitive, but "the other dude" is presumed to be another Torontonian in Tory Lanez, with whom Boi-1da sparred a couple of months ago.
In June, Boi-1da tweeted, "If I hear one more terrible dancehall attempt of a song I'm out." A producer of "Controlla," among other VIEWS tracks, Boi-1da clearly feels that his camp at OVO is leading the dancehall-inspired hip-hop wave and that a bevy of imitators have been perverting the trending sound. Tory Lanez himself felt that Boi-1da was specifically implicating him in the tweet, and he responded directly with a link to his single "Luv," which clearly incorporates elements of dancehall and other Caribbean sounds.
With regard to today's tweet, Boi-1da seems to be specifically calling out Tory for attempting to capitalize on his prolonged feud with Drake in order to gain more viral attention and thus more sales for his debut album, I Told You, which is due out on August 19. Not too long after his Twitter exchange with Boi-1da, Tory dropped a remix of "Controlla," which surely vexed Drake as well as the song's producer. Just yesterday, footage taken from Tory's Snapchat showed him taking shots at Drake while in Philly, the home of Drizzy's most notable rival, Meek Mill. "Real Toronto n*ggas out here in Philly," said Tory. "Unlike you, I'm good in Philly, n*gga."
In past months, it seemed that the media might've been reaching in declaring there to be a beef between Drake and Tory. Now, it's clear that there's no love lost between the two Toronto artists. So all this seems to point to an inquiry that's been at the center of many unexpected hip-hop rivalries that have emerged in recent times: Should one's "level" as an artist preclude them from beefing with other artists of a different tier?
