Tension continues to boil between rappers Pusha T and Drake after both have released diss tracks targeting one another, “Infrared” and “Duppy Freestyle,” respectively. However, Pusha T just dropped “The Story of Adidon” to turn up the heat in the rap battle.

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In this track, Pusha T again alleges Drake of using ghostwriters, fathering a child with a former porn star and even called out Drizzy’s parents and frequent collaborator Noah “40” Shebib. Most importantly, the incriminating blackface photo of Drake is the cover for T’s song “The Story of Adidon.”

The surfacing of this picture, captured by photographer David Leyes, has people calling for a “canceling” of the “God’s Plan” rapper’s tour. However, others see it as an expression of the apparent racism against African-Americans in the entertainment business.

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It appears as though the picture is from a photo shoot with the 2008 clothing line JIM CROW COUTURE/HOUSE OF CROW collection from Too Black Guys. However, the founder of the clothing company, Adrian Aitcheson, disassociated the line’s involvement with the photo shoot in a statement tweeted by New York Times‘ Joe Coscarelli:

“The photo in question was not from a Too Black Guys photoshoot however it did feature clothing from Too Black Guys’ JIM CROW COUTURE/HOUSE OF CROW collection which was released in 2008. The collection featured several graphics that highlighted the painful and dangerous period of the Jim Crow Era.

“Too Black Guys has a history of representing the black experience in an unapologetic way. Although this was not an image from any of our photoshoots, we feel that Drake, who is a long-time friend of the brand, was brilliantly illustrating the hypocrisy of the Jim Crow Era.

“The subtleties of Drake, a young black man, mimicking how white men used to mimic and dehumanize black people may be lost in a rap battle but we should not be distracted from the issues that are still affecting our communities.”

Then, people started to look to the photographer, Leyes, for answers.

The Instagram comments above reveals that Leyes is proud to have assisted Drake in what he was looking to express.

Finally, Drake posted an Instagram story on Wednesday to address the photo. His post read:

“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. 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.” 

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