Here Are All The Times Drake References His Child On 'Scorpion' & They're Intense
Drake fans know by now that the world-famous rapper isn't afraid to open up in his songs. The musician just dropped a new double album on June 29 called Scorpion, and the 25-track release is confirming the news Pusha T broke in his diss track, "The Story of Adidon": Drake has a secret child. Now, the MC is using his work to speak up about the rumors, and these lyrics about Drake's son are intensely honest and don't hold back when it comes to feelings on the complex, deeply personal subject.
Drake raps in Mariah Carey-sampling song "Emotionless":
Look at the way we live / I wasn't hiding my kid from the world/ I was hiding the world from my kid / From empty souls who just wake up and looked to debate / Until you starin' at your seed, you can never relate / Breakin' news in my life, I don't run to the blogs / The only ones I wanna tell are the ones I can call / They always ask, "Why let the story run if it's false?" / You know a wise man once said nothin' at all / I'm exhausted and drained I can't even pretend
This is already too deep for me.
In the final track off of Scorpion Volume 2, "March 14," Drake goes further into offering up raw insight on the situation, getting real about his experience of reconciling with the idea of impending fatherhood. The song speaks to his son directly at times, at one point explaining, "Fairy tales are saved for the bedtime stories, I tell you now." He also adds that he realizes "he has to think for two now."
The first verse of "March 14" begins:
Yesterday morning was crazy, I had to come to terms with the fact that it’s not a maybe / That sh*t is in stone, sealed and signed / She not my lover like Billie Jean, but the kid is mine / Sandi used to tell me all it takes is one time, and all it took was one time / Sh*t, we only met two times, two times! / And both times were nothing like the new times / Now it’s rough times I’m out here on frontlines, trying to make sure that I see him sometimes. / It’s breaking my spirit / single father, I hate when I hear it I used to challenge my parents on every album / Now I’m embarrassed to tell ’em I ended up as a co-parent /
"Billie Jean" is, of course, a reference to Michael Jackson's 1983 hit, where Jackson repeatedly sings, "But the kid is not my son." Sandi is referring to Drake's mother.
Drake also touches on the topic of his new baby in "8 Out Of 10." He raps:
The only deadbeats is whatever beats I been rappin’ to / Never a matter of could I or should I / Kiss my son on the forehead, then kiss your *ss goodbye / As luck would have it / I've settled into my role as the good guy.
Drake's candid musical reveal comes less than a month following Pusha T's debut of the unrelenting "The Story of Adidon," which implied that the Canadian rapper had fathered a child and kept the news private. "We talking character, let me keep with the facts/You are hiding a child, let that boy come home, ooh," Pusha said.
It makes sense that Drake waited to respond to the story through his art, which gives him the ability to declare his authentic emotions and share his side on his own terms.
Scorpion, Drake's fifth studio album, is available for your listening (and analyzing) pleasure now.