Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, you’ve probably heard people talk about “Donda” or “Certified Lover Boy”. “Donda,” the latest album by American rapper Kanye West and released in late August has contended Canadian rapper Drake’s album, “Certified Lover Boy,” released in early September, for spots on the September Billboard charts.
For the last decade, Drake and West have been in a love-hate relationship, a relationship leaning towards hate in recent years. What started as friendly competition between artists, escalated when Drake accused Kanye of telling fellow rapper Pusha T about Drake’s secret child Adonis with former adult film star Sophie Brussaux.
A month prior to the release of Drake’s album Scorpion where he first officially announces his child, Pusha T released a Drake diss track titled “The Story of Adidon” accusing Drake of being a deadbeat dad.
Drake argued that since Kanye had access to Drake’s song “March 14” on Scorpion, where he raps about his child, before the official release, Kanye was the one who told Pusha T. Kanye denied it all.
Since then, tensions have run high between the two rappers, reigniting this last month as fans speculated Kanye was waiting for Drake to drop his album first before dropping his own, in an effort to garner more attention than Drake.
With both albums having dropped within a few days of each other, naturally, fans and critics alike have been quick to compare.
Senior Sophie Pardehpoosh says she preferred Donda to CLB.
“I thought that CLB had a lot of the songs that sounded the same as each other and the same as his other albums,” she said, “ I wasn’t blown away by either, but I thought that Donda was at least something different that (I haven’t) heard before.”
Senior Henry Oliveria, a fellow Donda advocate, says he thinks Drake is repetitive while Kanye experiments with more variety.
“I haven’t been much of a Drake fan since 6th grade, and I only recently got back into him,” Oliveria said. “Kanye, I’ve never not liked, and I thought Donda was good.”
Senior Ryan Lykken, though, said Drake is a better artist with a better album.
“In my opinion I would choose Drake over Kanye any day. Drake has always been my favorite rapper since I started listening to that kind of music. I think he has the biggest impact in the music industry as he always sells out stadiums and mass amounts of albums,” he said. “I mainly love Drake because of his flow when he raps. His voice matches all his beats, and they are mostly really hype songs or really chill songs. I can always be in the mood for a Drake song”
But for some like senior Nikhil Majeti, Kanye is and always has been a better artist than Drake.
“I mean I think that Kanye could be Jesus reincarnated,” Majeti said.
