Sauce Walka Accuses Drake Of Appropriating Houston Culture
Sauce Walka is doubling down on his claims that Drake appropriates Houston culture without giving back to its purveyors following the Toronto rapper’s beef with Kendrick Lamar.
The Houston-bred rapper recently aired his grievances on The Breakfast Club and passionately questioned Drake’s commitment to the city that he claims to love, posing the question of why he’s seemingly less willing to work with Houston artists and instead, chooses Atlanta artists.
“You said it wouldn’t be no Drake without Houston, right?” Sauce Walka questioned Charlamagne Tha God rhetorically. “Why did Drake not have no bunch of records with Houston artists? You been doing it with Atlanta. It’s 7, 8, 9, 15 artists that you got songs with in Atlanta.”
In contrast, Sauce Walka feels that Drake has exploited Houston for its “market share” without contributing meaningfully to its music scene.
“It’s a long California, it’s a long list of artists from The Bay all the way to LA—they got Drake songs,” he remarked. “So how did Drake love Houston so much at that time and not have music with artists that you are uplifting from this community? “
Sauce Walka continued to emphasize the need for fair exchange in the music industry, especially when an artist like Drake uses a city’s culture to boost his own career. As a result, he urged for efforts that genuinely uplift the Houston music economy and provide more opportunities for local artists.
“F##k me, I don’t care,” he said. “It is bigger than me. I didn’t care about the song with me. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me what I’m saying, but from then to now, Travis Scott is the only rapper that still got a song with Drake, Travis Scott. Again, what I just said earlier, it makes sense because it’s a equal trade.”
Considering Sauce Walka’s take is gaining traction, Drake’s affiliates are already chiming in with their two cents. Drake’s longtime producer Boi1da became drawn into the discussion in the comments section of a post on Instagram in which a user was defending Drizzy’s commitment to working with Houston artists.
“Travis, Bun B, Pimp C, OG Ron C, DJ Screw, Multiple Houston producers etc…the sense of entitlement is crazy though,” the user wrote.
Boi1da obliged, adding, “Selective memory,” in his reply to the comment.
This isn’t the first time Drake has faced such criticism for aligning with a particular region or cultural sub-pocket of Hip-Hop. During his beef with Kendrick Lamar, the West Coast rapper referred to Drake as a “colonizer” in his “Not Like Us” diss track, accusing him of relying on Atlanta artists to generate buzz and profits throughout his career. And in fact, this isn’t even the first time Sauce Walka called him out, considering he spoke about this same issue on his almost 10 years ago on his song “Wack 2 Wack.”
Watch the clip above to hear Sauce Walka out.