Drake Disparages Esperanza Spalding And Rihanna On His New Album

Drake takes jabs at many individuals on his new album, “For All the Dogs.” Rihanna and Esperanza Spalding are two of them.

The fourth song on “For All the Dogs,” “Fear of Heights,” made available on Friday, includes some subtle jabs directed at Rihanna by Drake.

“Why do they make it seem like I’m still hung up on you?” asks the song’s opening line. That is not possible. From then on, it’s clear to whom he was writing the rhymes:

“Gyal can’t run me,
Better him than me,
Better it’s not me,
I’m anti, I’m anti [pronounced an-TEE],
Yeah, and the sex was average with you,
Yeah, I’m anti ’cause I had it with you.”

Drake alludes to Rihanna’s Barbadian accent by using the word “gyal” rather than “girl.” The title track of Rihanna’s most recent album, “Anti,” is “Sex With Me.”

“I had way worseb-this than you, TBH,” he says, describing how Rihanna vacations with her new partner on Antigua, a Caribbean island little over 300 miles from her home island of Barbados.

Drake and Rihanna regularly worked together on songs, such as the No. 1 hits “What’s My Name?” and “Work” on the Billboard Hot 100.

According to the media, the two allegedly began dating intermittently in the early 2010s, but Rihanna never acknowledged their relationship.

Not only Rihanna has made fun of female musicians. In the last song on “For All the Dogs,” “Away From Home,” Drake discussed his previous hardships and overcoming setbacks in his career.

He was furious at Spalding and the Recording Academy for elevating her over him in the critic’s eyes:

“I had four Grammy Awards under my belt, one hundred nominations, and Esperanza Spalding was receiving all the attention.

I’m trying to maintain my composure and be kind, but who gives a damn if Michelle Obama added you to her playlist?Then it seems like you were stolen since we never hear from you again.

In the field of jazz, Spalding is regarded as an exceptionally talented bassist, singer, and composer. In 2011, he was awarded the Grammy for Best New Artist, beating out Drake, Justin Bieber, Florence and the Machine, and Mumford & Sons.

Drake claims Spalding vanished from the public eye, although since 2011, she has published five of her eight albums and won five Grammy Awards, matching Drake’s total.

She has collaborated with artists such as Q-Tip and Robert Glasper. She was employed as a lecturer in the music department at Harvard University, an Ivy League institution, from 2017 to 2022.