Documenting Drake's Fascination With Battle Rap

Whether you like to admit it or not, we all suffer from a bit of "aubsession." What is Drake wearing? What is Drake doing? Who is Drake doing? But what does Drake himself obsess over? There’s the “aubious,” obsessions like strippers, Aaliyah, and your girlfriend — but would you be surprised to learn that one of Drake’s obsessions is something a little grittier? Something a little bit more aggressive, a little darker and more underground — like battle rap? A few weeks ago, Instagram users were shocked to see battle rap veteran Murda Mook post a picture with Drake, saying that the Canadian had just challenged Mook to a rap battle. Was this story real? Probably not, as neither party has spoken of the event since the picture was released. But was it plausible? Yes, actually, since Drake's love for battle rap is well documented. We decided to break down a brief history of Drake and his relationship with one of the biggest battle leagues in the world: King of The Dot.

During an interview with Nardwuar, Drake was asked about a local Toronto personality named Mindbender. Drake responded by saying; “…he’s at every King of The Dot battle…" Underground battle threads exploded, wondering how an artist that just got signed by Young Money even knew about KOTD.

Fast forward a couple months and Drake confesses his love for the battle league in a homemade video. “This is Drizzy Drake. The official King of The Dot representer. Number one fan, however you wanna call it. Whatever you wanna say. I don’t give a fuck man I will rep it man. You know what it is. Shout out to Organik. Shout out to Bishop Brigante my brother man.” Drake couldn’t make it to Blackout because he was in Amsterdam for his European tour with J Cole, but released a message of support. "I don’t have no script, I know who these guys are. You got Pat Stay you got Arsonal. So gentlemen I wish you the best, best of luck. I wish I could be there to witness it. I’ll catch the next one though, I’ll catch this online. Please believe. You know what it is King of The Dot. Young Money. "

True to his word, less than a year later, days before the release of Take Care, Drake came to KOTD’s "Flatline" event. Not only did he leave New York to go to the event, but he skipped out on appearing in someone’s music video just so he could co-host Dizaster vs DNA. He even put up his current pocket change ($6,000 to be exact) for the winner. “It was one of the best experiences, for real.” Drake said after the battle. "I had a blast. I’m glad I did it. Something to check off my bucket list. I’m a really big fan of the battle rap scene.” Drake also said that while creating Take Care, he would sit in the studio and watch battles with Hush every single night.

After missing out on the first Blackout, Drake made sure to be at the third annual event. He co-hosted three battles and officially put his name on the flyers — packing The Guvernment nightclub and making it one of the biggest events in KOTD history. Oh and he even sat down with the KOTD film crew to do a post-battle breakdown. “I just wanna say; I’m forever reppin' the greatest battle league in the world right here in mutha-fuckin-Toronto”

During the summer of 2013, Drake went Twitter happy and announced to his 16 million twitter followers that OVO would be the official sponsor of King of The Dot’s "World Domination" event. During the press conference for the event, KOTD founder Organik spoke about how the sponsorship came to be. "The Drake sponsorship was something that Drake had proposed to me one day while we were talking. He is a huge battle rap fan and one of, if not the biggest supporters, KOTD has. The OVO sponsorship helped us make the event the monster it is today. Drake is that dude. He really puts on for his city harder than anyone else in the game.” Sadly, last minute booking of the MTV VMA’s prevented Drizzy from making it to the event. So he responded the way any Canadian would … by apologizing:

During the night of the Total Slaughter battle rap league that Eminem and Royce da 5’9” attempted to put together, Drake just had one comment to make:

Drake is a rapper who gets paid more than three-times your college loan an appearance and could easily afford to create his own battle event. The fact that he instead chooses to support a local (turned worldwide) underground movement just goes to show how much of an ultimate fan he is.

Meron Gaudet would like to confess her aubsessions - @M_3rcy