Where's Kanye & Jay-Z's Collab On Drake's 'Views'?

As you are no doubt more than already aware, Drake released his new album, Views on Friday (have you been playing it on repeat, too?) and there is one glaring omission from this otherwise full bodied piece of work. The track "Pop Style" previously featured Jay-Z and Kanye West on it and was being hyped as such across the internet, but is now a featureless track on the album led only by Drizzy himself. More than a little disappointing, the unexpected change of heart is causing many fans to wonder what happened to Kanye and Jay-Z's guest spot on Drake's new album.

Considering that Drake pulled a bit of a Kanye West move by changing the name of his album at the last minute from Views From The 6 to simply, Views, it seems hardly surprising that such a major collaboration would also be scalped from the album at the last possible moment, too. What is perhaps a little more difficult to understand is why he made the decision. On Thursday night, right before Views was released on Apple Music, Drake gave a revealing interview with Beat 1's Zane Lowe in which he spoke about a variety of deeply revealing subjects including the fact that Jay-Z and Kanye West (otherwise known as The Throne) were no longer featured on Views, disclosing a simple enough reason for it. He explained:

Jay didn’t really do a verse. I was just trying to get 'Ye on it first. Jay kinda just did my first few lines for me and that’s how we flexed it ... It didn’t play out how I wanted it to go. Sometimes [Jay Z and I] just fall on opposite sides of the spectrum. It’s always mutual respect but sometimes it has to be from afar.

Which is fair enough, especially when considering that Drake is absolutely the sort of artist who is clearly proud to follow his own specific creative vision without needing to take lead from anyone else, and, as a result, would be unlikely to sacrifice the nuances of his desired sound just for the sake of a collaboration, no matter how awesome these three could have been together.

However, it's also not too surprising a move considering how negative a reaction Jay-Z's notoriously brief two-bar cameo received from the internet when the original version of "Pop Style" was released at the start of April.

All Hotline Bling hilarity aside, I can't imagine that Drake would have relished the idea of one of his songs becoming more known for it's memes than for it's music, and though it would have been great to hear three of the biggest MVP's of the current hip-hop scene joining forces, "Pop Style" is still a gargantuan track by it's own merits with or without the collaboration of The Throne, and you really have to respect Drake for taking that risk and achieving it.

Fans bitterly upset that the Kayne verse has been removed can take comfort from the fact that Drake hasn't ruled out the prospect of a future collaboration, stating in the same Beats 1 interview:

[Kanye] lives up the block. We have a few things that we’ve worked on. It’s all about finding a place for it. ‘Ye is one of my favorite people in the world ... I hope we get some more music out. We were supposed to do a mixtape, album together.

Though they've worked together previously (Drake contributed to Kanye's The Life Of Pablo), I think we can all agree that anything less than a couple of guest verses will be nothing more than a cruel tease. We want something bigger from these guys, and hopefully they'll deliver it someday soon.