Late Wednesday night, noted hip-hop aficionado Aziz Ansari appeared on The Tonight Show to talk up the multiple Emmy nominations for his Netflix series Master of None when the talk, inevitably, turned to the 2016 presidential election—and the full-sized Oompa Loompa sucking all the air (and reason) out of it, Donald J. Trump.
Ansari, who’d previously penned a New York Times op-ed denouncing Trump’s anti-Muslim hate speech (he hails from a family of Muslim immigrants), weighed in on the current feud between the tiny-handed demagogue and Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of the Purple Heart recipient Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004.
“The Khan family is the Drake to Donald Trump’s Meek Mill,” Ansari told host Jimmy Fallon. “I mean, it’s crazy! The guy makes the speech like, ‘Have you read the Constitution? Let me give you a copy!’ Then Trump is like, ‘Why doesn’t your wife say anything?’ Then the guy goes, ‘You have a black soul,’ which is the coldest shit I’ve ever heard.”
The comedian was, of course, referencing Drake’s slaying of Meek Mill last summer—you know, the one where Nicki Minaj’s cabana boy got mad at Drizzy for not tweeting about their single together so he chose to air him out, accusing the man formerly known as Wheelchair Jimmy of using a ghostwriter. Drake retaliated with a pair of diss tracks aimed at Meek, including the highly quotable hit “Back to Back,” which effectively ended the imbroglio—and put a serious dent in Meek’s credibility, and career.
Well, something must be in the air because, during the first of four shows with Future at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Drake took the stage and threw shade at the Big Apple radio station Hot 97, as well as its most prolific DJ, Funkmaster Flex.
“You see, they tellin’ lies on Hot 97, that’s how it goes,” announced Drake. “I told them ‘fire Funk Flex and then I’ll come and do your show.’”
Funk Flex then responded in kind, as is his wont:
For those confused over Funk Flex’s involvement in the whole Drake-Meek Mill dust-up, it was Flex who firmly sided with Meek last summer, where he released a series of “reference tracks” by accused Drizzy ghostwriter Quentin Miller for the Drake songs “10 Bands,” “Know Yourself,” “Used To,” and his Meek Mill collab “R.I.C.O.”
He also piqued listeners’ interest with a promised Meek Mill diss track—only to have it come four days late and fall on deaf ears. This inspired Team Drizzy fans to whip up a petition to have Flex removed from the airwaves, while fellow radio personality Charlamagne Tha God—of competing NYC hip-hop station Power 105.1, who was namechecked on “Back to Back”—labeling Flex “Donkey of the Day.”
Drake, meanwhile, seemed to recover from the minor flesh wound just fine. His “Back to Back” emerged as an unlikely chart hit; his recent album Views moved 1.04 million equivalent album units in its first week; he’s spent a whopping 18 weeks atop the Billboard Artist 100 chart; and is reportedly about to release a mega-album with Kanye West.
In the immortal words of Michael Corleone: “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.”