Yasiin Bey Explains Why Drake Isn’t Hip-Hop, Relates His Music To Shopping At Target

Yasiin Bey, formerly Mos Def, has racked up years of credibility in rap since launching his career in 1994. On a new episode of the fashion podcast The Cutting Room Floor, he was asked if he considered Drake to be hip hop, a question that clearly stressed him out.

“Why you doing this to me?” he began his answer saying. He continued, “Drake is pop to me, in the sense like, if I was in Target in Houston and I heard a Drake song… it feels like a lot of his music is compatible with shopping. Or shopping with an edge in certain instances… It’s likable.”

“What happens when this thing collapses?” he added. “What happens when the columns start buckling? Are we not in some early stage of that, at this present hour? Are we seeing the collapse of the empire? Buying and selling, where’s the message that I can use? What’s in it for your audience apart from banging the pom-poms?”

Watch the clip below.

@tcrfff 🎙️Season 5 Episode 2 #yasiinbey ♬ original sound – The Cutting Room Floor