{"id":804074,"date":"2020-02-11T14:01:35","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T21:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=951204"},"modified":"2020-02-11T14:01:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T21:01:35","slug":"drake-loves-rap-battles-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/drake-loves-rap-battles-so-much\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Loves Rap Battles So Much"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/drake-battle-rap.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/drake\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drake<\/a> is a man mired continuously in rap battles with a heart devoted to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_ca\/article\/6vm44d\/documenting-drakes-fascination-with-battle-rap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">battle rap<\/a>. In 2018, he explained \u201cI study rap battles for a living\u201d to LeBron James, taking the long way around while of admitting that he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/drake-pusha-t-feud-kanye-west-lebron-james-the-shop-737444\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lost a beef with Pusha T<\/a>. Some would argue Drake\u2019s job is less about studying rap battles and more about being a multi-millionaire pop star, but that\u2019s semantics; he\u2019s allowed to spend his YouTube time watching whatever he pleases. And as it stands, Drake loves spending his time watching dudes freestyle, a mode of competition that has little bearing on the omnivorous pop instincts he\u2019s developed over the course of his career.<\/p>\n<p>The Toronto rapper is a frequent guest at The King of Dot battles, one of the marquee events if you\u2019re into freestyle battles. Back in 2011, Drake was so sad he couldn\u2019t attend an event that he posted a weirdly <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/_v-pF-0T3wc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">heartwarming video<\/a> where he dubs himself \u201cThe official King of The Dot representer\u201d and its \u201cnumber one fan.\u201d Since then, he\u2019s hit the stage at SMACK\/ URL NOME 5 (Night Of Main Events), smiling in front of a crowd that wants him to battle Murda Mook. On Thursday, the world\u2019s most popular rapper put his dedication to the sport in writing, by announcing a partnership with a broadcast company (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.caffeine.tv\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Caffeine<\/a>) very few people have heard of, to live-stream a battle rap competition (URL).<\/p>\n<p> <!-- .l-article-content__pull--left --> <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always loved URL and admired what Smack and his team have been able to create, it just wasn\u2019t easily accessible,\u201d Drake said in a statement, via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.complex.com\/music\/2020\/02\/caffeine-drake-battle-rap-partnership\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Complex<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to be in a position where I\u2019m able to bring Caffeine to the table and help provide URL with the tools they need to elevate the viewing experience and make it more accessible to fans.\u201d It\u2019s unlikely that we\u2019ll see Drake participate in the rap battles.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U8WLyfTl91Q?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Caffeine, Drake\u2019s new live-streaming platform of choice, was founded by Ben Keighran, a former Apple designer, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/02\/11\/tech\/drake-caffeine-rap-battles-trnd\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">CNN Business<\/a>. \u201cWe can\u2019t pay the kind of money that Microsoft or Amazon can pay, so we have to differentiate on [that] we offer a better product,\u201d Keighran said of Drake\u2019s partnership with the company. \u201cI think if Drake were looking for straight up money, there\u2019s definitely YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch that I\u2019m sure will give him a lot more money than we could ever do.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-contextual-player\">\n<h3> Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/drake-loves-battle-951204\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drake is a man mired continuously in rap battles with a heart devoted to battle rap. In 2018, he explained \u201cI study rap battles for a living\u201d to LeBron James, taking the long way around while of admitting that he lost a beef with Pusha T. Some would argue Drake\u2019s job is less about studying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-804074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-23 00:52:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}