Getty ImagesPusha T isn't buying Drake's explanation for his controversial blackface photo.
For those in need of a recap, the two rappers have been trading barbs via verses for years and their ongoing diss track battle reached new heights last month when Pusha T released his new album, Daytona.
On one track in particular called "Infrared," Pusha T was suspected of taking aim at the 31-year-old star when he mentioned Quentin Miller, a rapper long accused of being Drake's alleged ghost writer, and compared Drake and President Donald Trump.
Without missing a beat, Drake quickly dropped "Duppy Freestyle" less than a day later, in which he took aim at Pusha T's drug dealing history and asked to be paid for the publicity he brought his new album.
However, Pusha T wasn't about to let his foe have the final word, so he issued another retort with "The Story of Adidon." As visual criticism, he used a photo of Drake posing in blackface as the cover image for the single.
"Please stop referring to this picture as 'artwork'...I'm not an internet baby, I don't edit images," Pusha T also tweeted in reference to the photo. "This is a REAL picture...these are his truths, see for yourself."
As could be expected, the image garnered attention online and Drake addressed it in a statement shared on Instagram.
"I know everyone is enjoying the circus but I want to clarify this image in question. This was not from a clothing brand shoot or my music career. This picture is from 2007, a time in my life where I was an actor and I was working on a project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast. The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment," he explained.
"Me and my best friend at the time Mazin Elsadig who is also an actor from Sudan were attempting to use our voice to bring awareness to the issues we dealt with all the time as black actors at auditions. This was to highlight and raise our frustrations with not always getting a fair chance in the industry and to make a point that the struggle for black actors had not changed much."
However, Pusha T is none too pleased by the photo that he unearthed
"I just know that me being a black man, that's something I'm totally against," he said about the picture in an interview with GQ. "I'm just like, 'How could you be that comfortable, ever?' Just for me, there's no way that's ever comfortable."
"That's not an explanation that I would accept," the star continued to the magazine.
Meanwhile, Pusha T is also adjusting to rap battling in the age of social media, where there is plenty of room for backlash.
"It's different because there's a lot of sympathy and compassion and things like that I didn't know existed. That's why it's not even fun to me anymore," he explained. Pusha T took aim at Drake over his alleged secret son and made an offensive reference to Drake's longtime producer and collaborator, Noah Shebib, also known as "40," who has multiple sclerosis.
"Bro, it's weird. It's so weird. There's a sentimental aspect that I didn't know existed," Pusha T continued on the social media subject. "But new rules. I'm learning and discovering a whole bunch of new rules in the rap game. And I'll just leave it at that."