Drake and Kanye teaming up for benefit concert where nothing dumb or awful will probably happen

The benefit show will be West's first real performance since 2016, and Drake's since the Astroworld tragedy earlier this month

By William Hughes  |  November 20, 2021 | 11:24pm
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Drake and Kanye teaming up for benefit concert where nothing dumb or awful will probably happen
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Left: Drake (Rich Fury/Getty Images for dcp), Right: Kanye West (JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX/AFP via Getty Images)

The “Drake-Kanye feud” has stood out, over the years, as one of the most brain-numbingly dull beefs in all of modern rap, an overblown group text drama inflated to national attention largely by the rampaging egos of the two men involved.

Now, though, it sounds like the conflict will finally reach some kind of armistice to its passive-aggressive warfare, as the two men have announced that they’ll be performing together at a benefit concert on behalf of incarcerated Chicago gang-leader Larry Hoover on December 9.

(Hoover has long been a passion project of West’s; the rapper previously personally petitioned Donald Trump to grant clemency to Hoover, who has made public efforts to reform his Gangster Disciples into a community organization. The federal government, meanwhile, has accused Hoover of continuing to run the gang from prison, and of using the group’s more positive efforts as money laundering methods.)

The news comes after what has been an extremely odd year for both men. West spent 2021 holding a high-profile series of listening parties for his album Donda, in the process lending his fame and support to alleged rapist and abuser Brian “Marilyn Manson” Warner, and defending rapper DaBaby after he was condemned for homophobic comments. (There’s also what appears to be the final dissolution of his marriage to Kim Kardashian West, a story we were certainly not expecting to have this much Pete Davidson in it.)

Drake, meanwhile, was doing pretty okay until the first week of November, when he drew censure for his participation in the Astroworld Festival that ended up killing 10 people in Houston, Texas. He’s currently named, alongside Travis Scott, in a number of lawsuits related to the festival; this benefit show will be his first public performance since.

Speaking of: This’ll also be the first actual Kanye concert since he pulled the plug on the St. Pablo tour back in 2016. (Fingers crossed he busts back out the floating stage.) West announced the news on his social media, captioning it with “God’s Plan,” because, like, of course he did.

 
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