Kanye West and Drake’s Recent Beef and Disses, Explained

Kanye West and Drake are at it again.

As both rappers get ready to release new albums in the final weeks of summer, tensions have reignited. After weeks of rumors about escalating drama behind the scenes, Drake had some words for Kanye on Trippie Redd’s new song “Betrayal.” Then Kanye responded by texting an image of the Joker to a group chat (which presumably includes Drake) with a warning: “You will never recover.”

So how did we get to this point?

Kanye and Drake have an extremely complicated relationship that goes back over a decade. They were friendly collaborators for years, before things got ugly and tensions spilled over to their respective camps. By the end of the 2010s, we had witnessed countless subliminals in song lyrics, purple demon emojis, and a full-blown beef between Kanye’s close collaborator Pusha-T and Drake. (We put together an extremely detailed breakdown of Kanye and Drake’s relationship from 2007 to 2018 right here).

By the beginning of this summer, though, the drama had seemed to cool between Kanye and Drake. There were even rumors that they had finally squashed it altogether. Then, the album rollouts began. Kanye started holding listening parties for Donda, but kept delaying the release of the actual album, which sparked rumors he was jockeying for position with Drake’s impending Certified Lover Boy rollout. Before long, it was clear old feelings had been reignited. Here’s a breakdown of everything that’s gone on between Kanye and Drake this summer.