Drake and Jay-Z have had a competitive relationship for years. While Drake has spoken admiringly about Jay-Z’s music, he has also criticized the other rapper. In 2014, Drake complained about a growing trend in the rap community. He pointed to Jay-Z as one of the worst offenders.

Drake once said something Jay-Z did was ‘corny’

In 2014, Drake complained about the connection between rap music and the art world. Jay-Z, for example, shouted out a number of artists in his 2013 song “Picasso Baby.”

“It’s like Hov can’t drop bars these days without at least four art references!” he told Rolling Stone. “I would love to collect at some point, but I think the whole rap/art world thing is getting kind of corny.”

Still, he praised one of Jay-Z’s songs in the same interview. He said he felt “physically sick” when he heard a song he wished he could have thought of, which happened when he heard “N***** in Paris” for the first time. 

“I was like, ‘How did I not think of that?’ – ‘Ball so hard, that s*** cray!’ It was real rap s***, but it felt melodic; all the cadences felt so good.”

In the same interview, Drake said he wasn’t thrilled about Kanye West’s album Yeezus. He didn’t think it was West at his best.

“There were some real questionable bars on there,” he said. “Like that ‘Swaghili’ line? Come on, man. Even Fabolous wouldn’t say some s*** like that.” 

Still, he said West was a major influence on him.

“Kanye’s the reason I’m here,” he said. “ I love everything about that guy.”

Afterward, Drake jumped onto social media to defend himself. He felt frustrated that his comments about Yeezus appeared in the story.

“I’m done doing interviews for magazines,” he wrote in a tweet. “I just want to give my music to the people. That’s the only way my message gets across accurately.”

Drake once expressed frustration that Jay-Z got a Grammy instead of him

Several years before his comments about Jay-Z, Drake said he’d given up on the Grammys because he lost to him for Best Rap Solo Performance.

“I’ve always been fascinated with the Grammys, so I don’t mean disrespect when I say this, but I’ve kind of given up on them,” he told Billboard in 2011.

While he thought Jay-Z’s song was good, Drake thought he deserved the award.

“But the one that really got to me was when I lost to ‘D.O.A.’ for ‘Best I Ever Had,’” he said. “That one to me was, like, really? Not to say that Jay-Z isn’t the most incredible rapper and that ‘D.O.A.’ wasn’t a good song. I just felt like they had an option to give me a Grammy for a mixtape, and they just didn’t do it [laughs]. Because it goes against the grain of everything that is traditional.”