It seemed like everyone got a surprise shout-out in Drake’s new freestyle, “War,” released at midnight on Dec. 24! But there was one line in particular that piqued our curiosity: “The women I do end up with has to be a bad girl just like Munchies.” Extra emphasis on the “bad girl” part, which just so happens to be similar to Rihanna’s Instagram handle: @badgalriri. Making this line even less of a coincidence is the mention of “Munchies,” since RiRi has not shied away from holding a joint in multiple Instagram posts over the years. The FENTY owner would be an interesting person for Drake sneak into a lyric, considering his romantic (and very up-and-down) history with her. There were the romance rumors in the early 2010s, followed by that infamous MTV VMAs speech during which Drake declared he’s been “in love” with Rihanna since he was 22 years old — only for RiRi to reveal they don’t “have a friendship” in her 2018 interview with Vogue.
Rihanna wasn’t the only high-profile woman in Hollywood that Drake seemingly referred to. Interestingly, he appeared to name-drop two supermodels whose little sisters have been rumored to be dating the rapper. “The man get beaky, ring ring, call up GiGi, do him up neatly,” Drake rapped in the first verse. He once fueled rumors that he dated Gigi Hadid’s 23-year-old sister, Bella, thanks to certain lines in his 2018 album Scorpion (Bella, however, denied they had a flirty past).
Moving on to the next model! “Before I was ever around Kendall, I was at ends though, dreamin’ up Benzo’s,” Drake rapped in the same verse. It’s a bold move to call out Kendall Jenner, 24, given that Drake JUST sparked romance rumors with the model’s sister Kylie Jenner, 22, shortly after the makeup mogul’s split from Travis Scott was announced in October! Not only did Kylie seem “to have a connection” with Drake at his birthday bash later that month (per a Us Weekly source), but Drake was also seen wearing a sweatshirt from Kylie and Kendall’s alma mater, Sierra Canyon High School, to DaBaby’s Toronto concert on Dec. 11.
Drake just confirmed him and The Weeknd squashed their beef 😢 pic.twitter.com/RzNU5QDCkZ
— SlowStrokeKingGrandy ⁶𓅓 (@grandwizardcn) December 24, 2019
But it was another rapper that fans especially took notice of in one of Drake’s verses. “And the boy that sound like he sang on Thriller…We just had to fix things, family, 6 tings, we can’t split up,” Drake rapped, and Twitter fans took this as a truce between the Toronto rapper and The Weeknd, who also happened to have an on-again, off-again romance with Bella.
There’s a lot to unpack in Drake’s new freestyle, which was produced for the new project El-Kuumba Tape Vol. 1, spearheaded by Oliver El-Khatib, the co-founder of Drake’s record label OVO Sound. Drake also filmed a music video for the track on the snow slopes, which you can watch above!