Anthony Fantano hits back after Drake sends him “salty” DM over music review

Calum Patterson
Drake and Anthony Fantano

YouTube’s most popular music critic, Anthony Fantano aka The Needle Drop, has somehow become embroiled in a feud with Canadian superstar Drake, after the latter sent him a surprise DM on Instagram.

Never one to hide his true feelings about an album, Fantano is revered for his reviews across all genres of music, and has been fairly critical of Drake’s last few efforts. Although artists have reached out about his reviews in the past, he never expected Drake himself to respond.

On September 16, Fantano uploaded a video titled “Drake Slid Into My DMs”, where he revealed a chain of messages – about a vegan cookie recipe. Of course, this was an obvious joke, but quickly Drake shared the actual messages he sent, and they were a bit more combative than a recipe.

Drake takes shots at Anthony Fantano over review score

In three short messages, Drake said “Your existence is a light 1” (mimicking a low score Fantano might give an album), “and the 1 is cause you are alive.

“And cause you somehow wifed a black girl. I’m feeling a light to decent 1 on your existence.”

Drake DM to anthony fantano
Drake was clearly not pleased with a Fantano review.

It’s not exactly clear what prompted this DM in the first place – Fantanto’s last Drake review was months ago, when he gave ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ a “not good” score out of 10.

Fantano, after realizing that Drake had in fact shared the real DMs (not the cookie recipe) on his IG story, quickly fired back.

“That b*tch shared the salty ass DM to over 100 million people,” he said, accompanied by a massive ‘W’.

He also joked that his rating system lives “rent free” in Drake’s mind.

After some more victory posts, claiming the W in this most unexpected of beefs, including posting a Pusha T review right before a Drake review (the two rappers have a longstanding rivalry), Fantano said he was only “being silly.”

“I’ll be the first to say Drake’s got bangers.”

Now, we must await a potential response from Drake – although given he usually stays pretty quiet on social media, Fantano may want to listen out for his next song, as he may just drop in a subliminal diss or two.

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About The Author

Calum is Dexerto's Managing Editor, based in Scotland. Joining Dexerto in 2017, Calum has years of experience covering esports, gaming and online entertainment, and now leads the team to deliver the best coverage in these areas. An expert on all things Twitch and gaming influencers, he's also an expert in popular shooters like Apex Legends, CS2 and Call of Duty. You can contact Calum at calum.patterson@dexerto.com.