Drake has been ordered to appear in court in the ongoing XXXTentacion murder trial.
XXXTentacion, real name Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, died in a shooting at the age of 20 as he left a car dealership in Miami, Florida in June 2018. The trial for his murder began last week.
In December, the defense team for Dedrick Williams – one of three suspects on trial for the murder of XXXTentacion – listed several artists, including Drake, Tekashi 6ix9ine, Offset and the late Migos rapper Takeoff, as possible witnesses.
Now, Billboard is reporting that defense attorney Mauricio Padilla believes that because they had a falling out before, Drake may be connected to XXXTentacion’s death. According to a court document obtained by Billboard, Drake was subpoenaed to appear in court last month, but did not show up for his scheduled January 27 plea date.
He is now ordered to appear in court on February 24 via video link. If you don’t show up again, you can be declared in absentia.
Billboard contacted representatives for Drake for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
According to Padilla’s initial arguments, the dispute between Drake and XXXTentacion began when the latter believed that the former had copied his song “Look At Me”. A year later, XXXTentacion posted a story on his Instagram saying, “If anyone tried to kill me, it was @champagnepapi,” tagging Drake’s Instagram account. The post was deleted and XXXtentacion later claimed his account was hacked and four months later he was murdered.
According to a December court filing, “Onfroy relentlessly mocked Graham on social media by making statements about his mother and even posting a photo of a Drake lookalike with cum on his face,” out of frustration. that Drake didn’t help him when he was in prison between 2016 and 2017. XXX allegedly asked DJ Akademiks to repost the photo, which escalated the dispute.
The filing later accused Drake of having ties to “gang-related activities” and named Somali-Canadian rapper Hassan Ali, an “alleged member of the Jungle Bloods street gang,” as a possible associate. Drake was publicly linked to Ali through his own Instagram posts.
Separately, Drake also recently made headlines for suggesting that musicians should receive “athlete-like bonuses” when they reach streaming milestones on Spotify. “Feel free to send me a check the size of Lebron. I already have enough plates,” he said.