Ghostface Killah has spoken on the "culture vulture" tag that comes up in hip-hop from time to time — and he believes it's a relatively mild insult.
During a recent chat with TMZ Hip-Hop, the Wu-Tang Clan rapper was asked about Drake’s recent interview with Bobbi Althoff, specifically, Drizzy’s reaction to being labeled a "culture vulture."
"Oh. Hey, listen, I’ve been called worse than that," Ghostface responded. "You need to chill out."
Drake revisited the "culture vulture" topic when discussing his and Althoff’s 2023 beef. The drama started after Althoff released her infamous Drizzy interview on her now-defunct Not Really Good Podcast series.
Drake claimed he cut ties with the podcaster after one incident in which she admittedly blamed Drake for some issues she was having. The OVO rapper said he knew he wasn’t "part of the problem," but was easily triggered when people pointed their fingers at him or questioned his intentions.
"I experience a lot of guilt-tripping in my life where people are like, 'No, this is your fault,' essentially," he said during the debut episode of Althoff’s Not This Again podcast. "And my intentions are pure. My intentions are pure. It’s the same way even in music. People will be like, 'You’re a culture vulture.'"
He continued: "They’ll put a negative spin on it and try and tell me that it’s a self-serving thing or whatever, and I think I get really sensitive about that."
Drake has faced "culture vulture" criticisms for quite some time, as he’s been accused of exploiting cultures of which he has no knowledge or genuine appreciation. The Canadian rapper tackled the label during a 2019 sit-down with Tiffany Calver of BBC Radio’s 1Xtra Rap Show.
"'Oh that’s some culture vulture...,' I don’t know what that means," he said. "I’ll never understand how supporting somebody’s song or giving someone a song isn’t admirable. I had to get that off my chest."
Kendrick Lamar fueled the culture vulture noise with the release of his 2024 diss tracks "Euphoria" and "Not Like Us." On the former, Lamar questions Drake’s authenticity within the hip-hop community: "You not a rap artist, you a scam artist with the hopes of bеing accepted," he spits.
On "Not Like Us," Kendrick refers to Drake as a "colonizer," stating he was using rappers to gain clout.
"You called Future when you didn’t see the club / Lil Baby helped you get your lingo up," Kendrick raps. "21 [Savage] gave you false street cred / [Young] Thug made you feel like you a slime in your head / Quavo said you can be from Northside / 2 Chainz say you good, but he lied."
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