Drake is set to appear on XXL‘s 150th issue set to hit newsstands on August 20th, but in a interview with XXL he talked about his late 2011/early 2012 beef with Common. Drake had this to say in an except from the issue below.
You did strike back at Common after he dissed you last year.
Obviously, the whole tension with that whole camp has been brewing for a long time, and that was the first time someone had called me out personally. I reacted in a very poised way. First of all, I made sure it would run in the club because that’s more painful than anything. As opposed to just being on a blog, I wanted to be on a record that you would have to stand around and hear every night for a few months. That was my whole strategy going into that. Instead of sounding hurt and malicious, I wanted to sound fun, get my shit off. Like I said, if it happens again, not that I want it, not that I welcome it, but I’m ready. I really enjoy writing bars, man. I’m not nervous about anybody saying anything to me.It seemed like you won, but his last line was good.
The Canada Dry line? That was epic. I liked it. It wasn’t a good line necessarily, but it was funny.Did he step over the line when he scorned you for being biracial?
For you to delve into my mom and my dad’s a bitch and all that, you’re just reaching for impact moments but the bars aren’t really good so it didn’t hit me. I never sat back and analyzed that either. I only heard it once, and thought, “I think I came away with the W on that one.”
