A news anchorman has accidentally called Drake a “raper” instead of a “rapper” while on live television.
The awkward blunder was made during a report on ABC7‘s Eyewitness News.
During the segment, the channel was reporting on the recent news that a man had been left seriously injured after a shooting outside the musician’s home in Toronto. However, when describing the incident, one of the hosts fumbled his words and labelled the artist as a “raper”, before quickly correcting himself.
“Lots of questions tonight about a security guard who was shot outside the mansion of the raper… rapper, I should say, Drake,” he said in the clip, which has now been posted to the network’s YouTube channel.
Not only is the moment hard to watch, it also comes at a particularly bad time for the rapper, as it happened to have taken place amid accusations thrown at Drake by rap rival Kendrick Lamar in recent weeks. Check out the blunder below.
The two have been feuding for years, but the beef seems to have gained momentum in recent days as they have been dropping some heavy diss tracks at one another – some of which by Lamar accuse the Canadian rapper of being a paedophile who targets young women.
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In the recent track ‘Meet the Grahams’, for instance, Lamar alleged that Drake is a sexual predator. “A child should never be compromised and/ He keepin’ his child around them/ And we gotta raise our daughters knowin’ there’s predators like him lurkin’,” he raps on the track.
Elsewhere on the song, released on May 3, he accused Drake of keeping “sex offenders” on a “monthly allowance” at his label and called him a “pervert“. Similarly, it featured the lyric that “The Embassy ’bout to get raided too, it’s only a matter of time”, in a reference to Drake’s house – his Toronto home he’s dubbed ‘The Embassy’.
In Lamar’s follow-up track ‘Not Like Us’ (released May 4), he doubled down on the allegations, rapping: “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young.” He also explicitly alleged that Drake and his team were paedophiles with a reference to Drake’s 2021 album: “‘Certified Lover Boy’? Certified paedophiles.” The verse is rounded up with the line: “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor.”
Following the accusations, Drake denied all claims made by Lamar and addressed them in ‘The Heart Part 6’ – the title which references Lamar’s various ‘The Heart’ songs.
The Canadian rapper’s track opens with a sample of Aretha Franklin‘s ‘Prove It’ before he raps: “Speakin’ of anything with a child, let’s get to that now/ This Epstein angle was the shit I expected TikTok videos you collected and dissected/ Instead of being on some diss-direct shit/ You rather fucking grab your pen and misdirect shit.”
He further addresses the allegations with the lyrics: “I never been with no one underage but now I understand why this the angle that you really mess with/ Just for clarity, I feel disgusted, I’m too respected/ If I was fucking young girls, I promise I’d have been arrested/ I’m way too famous for this shit you just suggested.”
As for the incident yesterday (May 7), reports emerged that police and paramedics were called outside Drake’s Toronto home, and a man had to be taken to hospital with serious injuries after a shooting took place.
Various outlets including Eyewitness News and The Toronto Sun went on to claim that the man shot was one of Drake’s security guards. However, this report has not yet been confirmed.
The investigation into the incident is ongoing, and the man injured has been confirmed not to be Drake.