Is Jay Z Dissing Drake on DJ Khaled's 'Shining'?
Upon hearing DJ Khaled’s Jay Z and Beyoncé-assisted single “Shining” off Grateful, fans wondered if it was just the latest installment in an ongoing feud between Hov and the 6 God.
That’s because Jigga’s verse appears to throw a thinly-veiled shot at Drizzy. “I know y’all ain’t talkin’ numbers, right?” he asks. “I know y’all ain’t talkin’ summers, right? / I know you ain’t walkin’ ’round talkin’ down / Sayin’ boss shit when you a runner, right?”
The line was highlighted due to Drake’s “Summer Sixteen” lyric about wanting “to be on Roc-A-Fella” before he “turned into Jay.” Last year, Hov seemed to respond to that verse on Khaled’s “I Got the Keys.” “‘Til you own your own you can’t be free,” he rapped. “‘Til you’re on your own, you can’t be me.”
But the feud goes deeper than that. On his 21 Savage-assisted slapper “Sneakin’,” Drake also appeared to address Young H.O. “You ain’t own it right away, you had to wait on ni**as,” he raps. “Man, I’m only 29, have some patience with us.”
And Jay seems to reference that on “Shining” too, name-checking 21 Savage. “21 Grammys, I’m a savage ni**a,” he raps before repeating the line for emphasis. “21 Grammys, I’m a savage ni**a / I shouldn’t even worry, backwards ni**as / 12 solo albums, all platinum, ni**a.”
It wasn’t always bad between Jay Z and Drake. In the past, the two collaborated on tracks like “Light Up,” “Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2,” and “Know Bout Me.”
Last year, Jay actually appeared on Drake’s “Pop Style” along with Kanye West, but even that was seen as a diss because Hov only recorded two lines for the song. Some would later claim this was a reference to a slight he made on “Takeover” back in 2001: “And all you other cats throwing shots at Jigga / You only get half a bar: fuck y’all ni**as.”
Jay Z and Kanye, billed as The Throne, did not appear on the album version of “Pop Style.” In October, Kanye appeared to indicate this was due to politics surrounding streaming platforms. “I wasn’t on the song because of Hov,” Kanye explained. “‘Cause of some TIDAL-Apple bullshit. This shit be gettin’ me tight every time I perform this motherfucker. Y’all didn’t get what y’all was supposed to get with me and Drake on this song because of some TIDAL-Apple bullshit.”
The feud might not be over. Drake is planning to finish his next project More Life in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Jay Z has reportedly privately been working on his follow-up to 2013’s Magna Carta Holy Grail.