Ice Cube Clarifies Remarks About Drake Being Over

A few weeks ago, Ice Cube got some ink for declaring that Drake's reign at the top of the rap game was over.

"He had a good run," Cube said specifically about Drake during the Sana G morning show. "You've only got a three year run in the rap game. You've only got three years at the tip top of the rap game before you have to find your place in this thing. That's just a pattern. Everybody. Wayne when he was hot, three years on top. T-Pain. Three years on top, looking for someone else."

The timing of Cube's comment was interesting for two reasons. First, Drake was coming off two mega-hits in "God's Plan" and Nice For What," suggesting he still had plenty of juice left. On the other hand, Cube's declaration came right after Pusha T smacked Drake with "The Story Of Adidon."

It turns out none of that mattered in Cube's equation, and he was simply speaking about the unstoppable passage of time.

“I wasn’t saying that about Drake,” he clarified in a new interview with Big Boi. “It’s my theory about anybody in music. You usually have a three, maybe five-year reign at the tip-top before the industry is looking for something new. That’s just, you know, I’ve seen it happen time and time and time again. It happened to me. After the reign on the tip-top, you have to find your place. Don’t fall all the way to the bottom. Find your place near the top, keep doing music, keep growing your fanbase. So, that was the theory. It wasn’t about Drake ... It happens. It's just the ebb and flow of the industry.

When Cube got a follow question on who was going to take over for Drake at the top, the 49-year old punted.

“I have no idea ’cause I don’t care,” he said with a smile. “That’s the problem. Nah, it’s not that. It’s that I don’t look at artists for that. I look at do I like the music or not. And if I do, you at the top. If I don’t, you at the bottom.”

Jump to the 25 minute to hear Cube clarify.