Drake and PartyNextDoor's anxiously awaited collaborative album $OME $EXY $ONGS 4 U drops tomorrow (February 14). Already, the project has managed to spark a great deal of controversy. The duo unveiled its cover art earlier this week, earning responses from two fellow artists, Freddie Gibbs and John River. River alleges that he had various meetings with PartyNextDoor and OVO members, and that they questioned him about his creative process.
Allegedly, they asked about his "Hope City II" music video in particular, along with the Marilyn Monroe towers in Mississauga that are featured in it. These same towers appear on the cover of $OME $EXY $ONGS 4 U. River accuses PartyNextDoor of threatening to get him black-balled from the industry if he didn't pay him homage.
"PartyNextDoor wanted to get on a call after my video went viral in the country. On this call that lasted around 2 hours, he told me he watched the video 20x & me in front of the Monroe Towers was labeled new innovative & iconic. 'Why are you getting this attention instead of me is exactly what he said,'" an Instagram post shared by River today reads in part. "For over an hour he then told me (& tweeted then deleted) that I needed to always pay him homage. 'You're young & you don't want to get black balled.' The rest of the call he was fixated on every aspect & detail of my video, the towers & my vision for the city. Multiple people were present. I told him I respect his music but homage was strange."
At the time of writing, PartyNextDoor has yet to publicly address these allegations. As for Gibbs, he accused Drake and PartyNextDoor of stealing imagery from his 2022 album, $oul $old $eparately. "Damn they even stole the rabbits too. I’m flattered," he alleged in a post on X today.
