Boi-1da on Drake's chart comeback after Kendrick Lamar beef: 'He's inevitable'

Matthew "Boi-1da" Samuels walks the red carpet at the 2025 SOCAN awards in Toronto, on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan

TORONTO — Canadian producer Boi-1da says Drake’s latest chart domination proves once again that the Toronto rap star is unstoppable.

The Grammy-winning beatmaker, who worked on the tracks “National Treasures” and “Make Them Remember” from Drake’s recent album “Iceman,” says he never doubted the rapper would rebound in a massive way following his high-profile beef with L.A. rapper Kendrick Lamar.

“You can create all the narratives, you can create all of the fake narratives that you want,” Boi-1da said in an interview Friday while promoting his upcoming collaborative album with Canada Soccer, “What If It All Goes Right?”

“You can band together and do whatever you want to try and bring him down, say lies about him, whatever. But it just doesn’t work, man. He’s just impenetrable to foolishness. And he always bounces back.

“He’s just inevitable. He’s always going to come back with great music.”

Drake made Billboard history this week after shattering Michael Jackson’s record for the most No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 among solo male artists, notching 14 in total.

The Toronto rapper also became the first artist to surpass 400 career Hot 100 entries following the release of his new trilogy of albums, “Iceman,” “Habibti” and “Maid of Honour.”

The releases mark Drake’s first solo projects since his beef with Lamar in 2024, with references to the rivalry woven throughout several tracks.

The critical consensus seemed to be that Lamar won the feud due to the success of “Not Like Us,” his diss track aimed at the Toronto rapper, which swept last year’s Grammy Awards with five wins and saw a massive chart resurgence after Lamar performed it at the Super Bowl.

At the height of the beef, some U.S. commentators, including Apple Music host Ebro Darden, even questioned Toronto’s place in the rap conversation, suggesting the city doesn’t have a distinctive regional sound.

“Ebro is very uneducated in that sense,” said Boi-1da.

“He doesn’t know about the culture out here. He doesn’t know how it is to grow up out here, he doesn’t know that all the cultures rock with each other. We all listen to each other’s music, and we’re diverse in that aspect.”

Boi-1da said Drake’s bounce-back from the beef has been “on another level.”

“I think he’s the biggest he’s ever been right now. And it’s amazing to watch, because I stood by him while all that was happening,” says the producer, who’s helmed many of Drake’s hits, including “God’s Plan” and “Energy.”

“I’m beyond proud of him, man, because what he went through, not a lot of people would be able to withstand that and then come back like the way he came back.”

Boi-1da, born Matthew Samuels, said watching Drake’s rebound unfold has been especially meaningful because of how long he’s known the rapper.

“I’ve known Drake since I was 16. We’re both the same age... we’re turning 40 this year,” he said.

“I always thought he was the best. I said that from the jump. I said, ‘This guy is going to be the best one day.’”

Boi-1da said he believes Drake’s continued popularity exposes the disconnect between online discourse and real-world listeners.

“Whatever narratives were created online were just destroyed, because when you go out in actual real life and you see the amount of people that listen to him and love Drake, you realize that narrative lives only on the internet,” he said.

“And a lot of the time, it’s not even real people. It’s like, bots and fake people, fake accounts and paid.... I won’t even get into it. I’m happy for him.... Bots are crazy right now.”

Boi-1da said he collaborated with a “very Canadian” array of producers on “Iceman,” including London Cyr and BEDRM on “National Treasures” and DRTWRK on “Make Them Remember.”

The producer said his message to Drake while making his new albums was simple: tune out the noise and keep creating.

“For me, the conversation is always just, ‘Keep doing you, man. Don’t listen to all the noise, the bots. Just continue to be yourself,’” he said.

“And that’s exactly what he did. He’s just himself, like it or love it. And lo and behold, everybody likes it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2026.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press