By: Papa Minnow

When Drake was coming up in the rap scene, he and Wayne were inseparable. The two were akin to adopted brothers in the industry. Today however, Drake and Wayne have drifted apart: no longer the tight knit self-named duo Young Angel and Young Lion. 

In 2007, Wayne took Drake under his wing and helped him not only develop as an artist, but also gave Drake major exposure in an American scene that was very foreign to Canadian hip-hop artists. They collaborated on several songs and at that time, Wayne was on a historic rap run and arguably the greatest rapper alive.

It’s very possible that Drake could have flourished elsewhere on other labels with his talent alone, but Wayne was a seminal part of Drake’s growth and development with his initial pioneering of melodic rap. Wayne paved a runway for Drake to fly. 

Some of their initial hits came in the form of; Bedrock, Miss Me, and Every Girl In The World. They later went on to make commercial hits heard around the world with The Motto, HYFR, Pop That, Only, and I’m On One. 

Given their collaborative success, the two label mates began to float around the idea of doing a joint album. Drake first mentioned it to Tim Westwood back in 2010, while Wayne confirmed that the project was in the works during an MTV interview.

Birdman, the head of Cash Money Records, later confirmed in 2011 to XXL that an album was in the works. However, given the success of Ye & Jay’s Watch The Throne album, Drake confirmed they scrapped the album because they didn’t want it to be a competition or viewed as rivalry with Watch The Throne. 

Instead, in 2014 the two went on a major tour together titled Drake vs. Lil Wayne Summer Tour which saw them co-headlining shows and performing both their solo and joint hit records together.

Even with Wayne teasing a project back in 2019, to this day no album has come about. The last time the two were on a newly recorded song together was back in May of 2021 on Seeing Green off Nicki Minaj’s re-released 2009 mixtape project: Beam Me Up Scotty. 

That same year Drake dropped Certified Lover Boy where Wayne was featured on You Only Live Twice. However, listeners of the song can easily identify how outdated it sounds and it very much feels like a song recorded from the mid 2010’s.

There’s been major releases from both artists since and not a single collab or credit on either of their recent albums. The Carter VI came out June 6th 2025 and a Drake feature was nowhere to be seen, despite rumours from Akademiks saying he would be on the album. 

Even with their continual public love for each other, it’s clear somewhere down the line the relationship turned sour. It’s well known that there was a little bit of friction between the two when Drake slept with Wayne’s girl after he went to prison back in 2010 for a 1-year firearm charge in which he served 8 months. 

He rapped about it on 6 Foot 7 Foot when he says: 

“Had my heart broken by a woman nammed Tammy / But hoes gon’ be hoes, so I couldn’t blame Tammy.”  

It also resurfaced in Kendrick Lamar’s hit diss track Not Like Us when the beef between Drake and Kendrick blew up last year. A song Wayne was caught singing to, but later stated that he didn’t know the song was about Drake despite lyrics pertaining to Drake in the song. 

“F****d on Wayne’s girl while he was in jail, that’s conniving / Then get his face tatted like a b***h apologizing.” 

That encounter with Wayne’s girl and Drake wasn’t the cause of their rift as they maintained their friendship and saw their peak success well after that occurrence. The only logical conclusion for their possible fallout is a fame and label dispute.

In his 2018 interview with music journalists B.Dot and Elliott Wilson, Drake explains that he eventually elevated to a bigger artist than Wayne and took his business into his own hands. That lead to a split between him and his former label: YMCMB. From there things went awry and he opted to sign directly to Universal. 

“I’m always going to be involved with the Cash Money, Young Money imprint,” Drake says. “My loyalty always lies there, but I’m just signed directly to Universal.” 

Drake appeared very shaky when discussing what transpired and how he handled his career going forward.

“That situation was a lot of mess that needed to be cleaned up over the years.” 

Given how big Drake became and how long it’s been since he’s collaborated with Wayne it’s safe to say that this was the major turning point in what transpired as a tumultuous falling out. There could be other elements involved in the separation of the two, but we may never be privy to all the details of their story.

It’s unfortunate since fans are deprived of further music from two of Hip-Hop’s best, but I wouldn’t expect to hear any new collaborative songs from these two again soon.