Drake has long been regarded as one of the most influential artists in global rap and hip-hop. The Canadian rapper owns a long list of massive hits, impressive streaming records, and has consistently dominated international charts for more than a decade. He is currently one of the artists with the most No.1 songs in Billboard Hot 100 history, with 13 chart-topping singles in the United States.
Drake is also one of the Western artists that BTS admire the most. Leader RM once revealed that Drake was one of the artists who helped him discover his singing abilities back in 2009 and had a major influence on his later musical direction. “In the past I wanted to do something just like Drake—he influences Western music as the musical style he’s after changes,” he said in an interview on Weverse.
BTS previously had the chance to meet Drake at the Billboard Music Awards 2019. At the time, Drake praised the group by saying: “You guys are the most famous people in North America right now.” The rapper also promised to personally host BTS when they returned to Canada: “I’ll hold you to that. Congrats.” After the brief interaction, RM screamed in excitement while j-hope jokingly declared that he would never wash his hand after shaking hands with Drake. In a 2019 interview with iHeartRadio, BTS also mentioned Drake first when asked which artist they hoped to collaborate with.
All of this shows the mutual admiration and respect between the two global artists!
Although they still have not officially worked together on a project, it seems Drake could not wait any longer and recently referenced BTS in a newly released track "Make Them Cry" from his ninth studio album, ICEMAN, sparking major attention within the K-pop fan community. The lyric, “I’m feeling like BTS ‘cause it took the whole career for me to be so discovered,” has quickly gone viral across social media.
At first, some netizens were confused about what Drake actually meant by mentioning BTS, leading to discussions such as: “Is this shade?”, “I can’t tell if he’s saying something good or bad about BTS,” and “Wait, is he dissing them?”
However, it did not take long for fans and major fanbase accounts to clarify the actual context behind the lyric. According to them, Drake was not insulting BTS at all—instead, he was acknowledging the Korean group’s remarkable rise to global success. One major BTS fanbase account with more than 1.2 million followers explained that Drake was comparing the feeling of achieving worldwide fame after years of hard work to BTS’s own journey.
Other fans also emphasized that BTS came from a small company with very little industry power in South Korea’s entertainment scene, yet eventually rose to become a global phenomenon through persistence and steady growth. Because of that, Drake mentioning BTS is being viewed as a recognition of the group’s iconic success story.
One fan wrote: “Drake are NOT insulting BTS btw. He actually acknowledge how BTS start from bottom and now here they are, on TOP.” Another shared a similar opinion: “This isn’t dissing them at all—it’s acknowledging that BTS came from an unknown company with barely any industry power and still worked their way up to global dominance, worldwide influence, and massive success step by step instead of becoming famous overnight.”
Meanwhile, many rap fans pointed out that this kind of wordplay is actually very common in hip-hop. Drake was believed to be rhyming “career” with “Korea,” similar to how Nicki Minaj did in the song IDOL. Before Drake, other rappers such as J. Cole, Doechii, and Wale had also referenced BTS in their songs to express admiration for the Korean group’s global influence.
One fan also made a particularly striking comment: “Kpop stans proving once again they do not know how rap lyrics work. Every name drop is suddenly a ‘shade tweet’ to them.”
At the same time, ARMYs have been extremely excited because the mention came right after BTS were announced as one of the three headlining performers for the halftime show of the FIFA World Cup 2026 final at MetLife Stadium this July. Drake including BTS in his lyrics at this moment further reinforces the global legacy the group has built over more than a decade of activity.
ARMYs are celebrating online with comments such as: “I’m not a Drake glazer but he did his thing here. BTS paved the way,” “He really sees the vision and the grind. The industry knows who the standard is!”, “Waking up to Drake recognizing BTS.. it wasn't on my bingo card,” “The timing is actually insane. Did Drake know BTS were just announced for the World Cup halftime show?”, and “Drake mentioning BTS right when they’re about to headline the World Cup. The whole world is picking BTS",...
