What happened with Drake and Anthony Fantano? DM incident revisited as latter reveals issues with rapper's response to Kendrick

On Monday, May 6, American music critic and YouTuber Anthony Fantano took to X and listed the “TOP-THREE ISSUES WITH DRAKE’S RESPONSE” to rival rapper Kendrick Lamar in his latest diss track, The Heart Part 6, as part of their ongoing feud.

He began by addressing Drizzy, “If you fed Kendrick information… proof? Phone calls? DMs? Anything? We know can screenshot messages and post ‘em.” This was in reference to Drake's claim that he deliberately fed false information to Lamar.

Anthony Fantano’s next point mentioned, “That’s not what Mother I Sober is about. Dude is trying to analyze Kendrick’s bars and misses the story. Media literacy has left the chat.” The music critic suggested that Drake failed to understand the meaning of K-Dot’s hit song, which was about overcoming generational trauma.

In his final point, The Needle Drop founder wrote, “There’s no B-Sharp. Check your chromatic scale before doing music theory bars.” He mentioned this with regards to Drizzy raising doubts about Kendrick’s diss track for him, titled Euphoria.

Notably, this is not the first time Anthony Fantano has taken a dig at Drake. Earlier, the two engaged in a feud in September 2022.

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Drake slid into Anthony Fantano’s DMs to call him out

In June 2022, YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano gave a "Not Good" verdict out of 10 to Drake's studio album Honestly, Nevermind.

Three months later, the So Far Gone rapper took to his Instagram Story to leak his direct messages (DMs) to Anthony Fantano, where he wrote –

“Your existence is a light 1. And the 1 is cause you are alive. And cause you somehow wifed a black girl. I’m feeling a light to decent 1 on your existence.”

Drake’s rating was a play on Fantano’s tradition of reviewing songs and albums on a unique scale of 1 to 10, where "light" was low. Meanwhile, his Instagram Story revealed that he was the first to slide into Anthony Fantano’s DMs, and there was no prior communication between the duo.

However, before Drizzy called out the music critic publicly, Anthony released a video titled “Drake Slid Into My DMs” on his alternate YouTube channel fantano, and claimed that the Canadian artist texted him on Instagram.

As per Variety, the clip was a parody and the messages shared were fabricated, including the one where Fantano alleged that Drake sent him a detailed vegan cookie recipe in the middle of the night and asked him to try it out. The video also saw Drake hoping that Anthony would enjoy his upcoming albums, despite disliking his earlier albums such as Take Care.

While it remained unclear what exactly prompted Champagne Papi to DM Fantano, the latter issued a lengthy reply to the hip-hop star via his Instagram Live.

“Essentially what happened is that for reasons unknown to me, Drake was in his feelings, as he does tend to be.”

The “internet’s biggest music nerd” as he is often called also called Drake’s “salty little" DM request a “bit of diss” and called it “quite sad and unfortunate.”

Not only that but he ridiculed the Toronto native by asking why was he texting him as he wasn’t 18 years old like his rumored friend and actress Millie Bobbie Brown.

Anthony Fantano also slammed Drake for using the wrong version of his rating system and called him “kinda weird” and “little obsessed” with him. The 34-year-old also trolled Drizzy’s “quality of insult,” saying this is the reason why he had “ghostwriters” in his employment as he struggled to write properly “solo dolo.”

The internet personality also shared his decision not to reply to the rapper’s DM and said –

“Fantano gets the W today. I’m gonna leave Drake on read just like all the other thirsty b*tches in my DMs. Another angry b*tch in my DMs. I don’t need another one… I left Drake on read just like so many women from the past. I’m just one more in a long line [who] left that man on read.”

He also addressed Drizzy and called him “sad” and “pathetic” for leaking his own messages, and asked him, “I don’t even have a million followers. How do you let me get under your skin like that?”

In conclusion, Anthony Fantano wrote that he had “no hard feelings” for Champagne Papi and claimed that although he was a leading rap artist with “great tracks,” “great records drop,” and “fantastic hits,” he didn’t care for his music and had a different taste.

At present, Anthony Fantano's fan base has grown from before and he has 1 million followers on Instagram and over 1.76 million subscribers on YouTube, among other popular social media platforms.