Wiley and Ed Sheeran beef: Why the grime star is feuding with the 'Perfect' singer and Drake

Grime artist Wiley is burning bridges in the music scene, reigniting his feud with Drake as he tweeted “the war has started” and kicking off a brand new one with singer Ed Sheeran. After branding the pair “culture vultures” and “pagans” for adopting elements of grime and its community to gain “clout”, he criticised the pair in a tweetstorm and follow up interview - and now Sheeran has broken his quasi-retirement to defend himself.

Sheeran penned an open letter to Wiley in which he said he wanted to “clear a few things up”, which included a number of claims that Wiley made regarding their collaborations. Sheeran said, “You know I have a deep love and respect for the scene, and for you.”

For more on why Wiley is fighting with Drake and Ed Sheeran, read on below…

Why is Wiley feuding with Ed Sheeran?

Ed Sheeran’s name was thrown into the mix during one of Wiley’s tweetstorms, which saw him take fire at the ‘Perfect’ singer and Drake for co-opting grime into their music and brand.

Wiley has previously made his distaste for Sheeran using grime clear on Twitter. After Sheeran and Stormzy collaborated on a track called ‘Take Me Back to London’, Wiley subtweeted that he was “sick of people using grime to look good for two minutes”. (Stormzy later defended Sheeran, saying that Ed had “been doing [grime] from early, been a real one from early [on]”.)

Wiley, who collaborated with Sheeran on a song called You for his No.5 Collaborations Project in 2011, also revealed another part of his beef with Sheeran was also down to a business deal. In an interview with Radio 1XTra, Wiley claimed that when he had asked Sheeran to help him with a project in return, Sheeran’s label reportedly restricted access to him in what he called a “big privilege saga”.

Sheeran featured on Wiley's song If I Could in 2011, however he claimed that the musician's team had limited his time with Sheeran and told Wiley he couldn't feature Sheeran in his music video.

Wiley said, “When I was working with Ed, I was working for him to do it for him. When it was time to do it for me, he didn’t want to do it... He didn’t want to stand up to his label. He folded.”

He also added, “You’re not allowed to use grime [Sheeran], you know why? Because we’re not allowed to use you or anything that you do.”

He added that he was “not mad” and said that Sheeran was “big business”, but continued, “Ed Sheeran knows what I’m talking about...I don’t hate Ed Sheeran but he is not allowed to just do what he wants when it comes to the word grime.”

Wiley also referenced a lawsuit between Sheeran and the Marvin Gaye estate. The latter is suing Ed Sheeran for allegedly copying Gaye’s song Let’s Get it On in his tune Thinking Out Loud. He said, “People don’t know where the vibes come from. Ed Sheeran, you are a culture vulture and I’m not listening to you anymore. I’ve listened to you rip off Marvin Gaye, I’ve listened to you rip off everything.”

How did Ed Sheeran respond?

Sheeran, who is currently taking a break from the music scene, broke his silence to release a statement to 1Xtra to “clear a few things up” and addressed a few of Wiley’s points.

In response to Wiley’s claims around his song If I Could, Sheeran said, “I never said no to doing a song for you after we made ‘You’ for no.5. You wanted to release ‘If I could’ the same week as my debut single on a major label and I merely asked if you could move to a week before or a week after, which you did, the song came out, and I’m still very proud of it.”

He additionally responded to Wiley saying “we’re not allowed to use you or anything that you do”, with Sheeran stating, “I’ve said yes to 90% of the features I’ve been personally asked for, unless I’ve been on a break or I haven’t known the artist personally.”

“The only time I can think of that I didn’t let my name get featured on a song that I was on, was on Chip’s league of my own part 2, he asked me to sing backing vocals, which I did, and I didn’t feel comfortable being a featured artist when I hadn’t written or performed properly on the song,” Sheeran continued.

Throughout Wiley’s Twitter storm, the grime artist kept angrily making references to Sheeran’s song ‘You Need Me Man I Don’t Need You’ (though it isn’t clear what point he was trying to make). Sheeran clarified, “You need me I don’t need you I wrote when I was 15, and definitely isn’t about anything other than teenage angst.”

Sheeran finished, “You know I have a deep love and respect for the scene, and for you. I look forward to godfather 3, excited to hear it. This is the last I’ll say on this.”

It appears that Wiley isn’t a fan of Sheeran’s statement however, as he retweeted another user who shared Sheeran’s letter and captioned it, “Ed Sheeran is a dumb culture vulture and @WileyUpdates is an icon.”

Why is Wiley feuding with Drake?

Wiley and Drake’s drama goes back further than his with Sheeran - this isn’t even the first time that Wiley has called Drake a culture vulture. The first time was following Drake’s UK tour, over the course of which Drake brought grime artists including J Hus, Afro B and Dave onstage during his performances.

Recently, Wiley doubled down on the insult and fired shots at Drake and his label OVO after progress on an upcoming collaboration came to a halt.

In a string of tweets (some of which have been deleted), Wiley revealed that he was being “held back” from releasing a collaboration track that he worked on with Nicki Minaj and OVO-signed artist Popcaan.

He tweeted, “I’m being held back cos @Drake obviously ain’t clearing @PopcaanMusic and @NICKIMINAJ Is going to start her family 😂😂😂😂😂 it’s a dead end.”

Minaj recently announced she was retiring from the rap game on Twitter, after telling People that she and her boyfriend Kenneth Petty would be married in “about 80 days”, though she subsequently rowed back on the announcement by deleting the tweet.

Wiley tagged Popcaan in another tweet, writing, “[OVO] said they won’t clear your verse Cos you ain’t even given them any music for your own project.”

Wiley continued his barrage of tweets, saying that Drake’s OVO label gave artists “sh*t record deals”. He said, “Don’t ever sign to @OVOSound they give you sh*t record deals and your only there to help @Drake with songs to keep him up and you down. Set up for you to fail.”

In another deleted tweet, Wiley also tagged Drake and told him, “Suck ya mum don’t come back to England.”

He also claimed that grime artist Skepta had told him that OVO had attempted to sign the Shutdown rapper “for peanuts” and “twopence”, branding Drake a “pagan”.

He continued, “@drake tried to sign skepta for 2 pence what does he think we are stupid...This ain’t cash money when we get paid 5 other people don’t get paid.”

Wiley called for somebody to interview him and the 1Xtra Breakfast Show delivered, talking to him after he deleted a number of his tweets., and claimed Drake was using grime music and the community “for himself” in the interview.

Wiley revealed that he had actually at one point “tried to apologise” to Drake because he “felt bad” for initially calling him out on tour, but said in the radio show he was rescinding his apology. Saying that Drake was “bringing out people as if he is Jesus Christ the Saviour”, he continued, “Man them who are not from the hood, they come to places trying to get involved with man from the hood. You know what it is? He’s just a pagan and he knows it.”

Wiley then addressed the host and the public, saying, “I’m saying you lot, stop looking at it like [Drake’s] helping [the grime community] because he’s not. He’s helping himself.”

Wiley also criticised Drake for his involvement with the show Top Boy, saying, “I read a thing the other day, you know what it said? Drake saves Top Boy. Really? Drake saves Top Boy, yeah?”

Drake, who hails from Toronto, recently signed on as a producer for Top Boy, a former Channel 4 show. After C4 didn't renew the show, the Canadian rapper fought to bring it back for another season and succeeded, with Netflix agreeing to take on the show for another series. Wiley, who did not initially know that Drake had been so involved in bringing Top Boy back, blasted Drake for his involvement.

“I didn’t need Drake to let me know Top Boy was sick. Listen, I respect the fact that he’s backing them... I respect it from that side. But watch this, so we need Canadians and Americans to come and help us because we can’t do it ourselves? Cool, but my genre has produced over twelve, thirteen millionaires but we all looking in the sky,” he continued.

“Listen, I could’ve owned everybody in the whole scene,” Wiley said, “but I didn’t, so that lets you know where my heart and head was at.”

Wiley also warned, “Just keep your eyes open mate, because everybody who smiles and talks to you or tries to bread is not always coming with good intentions - and that’s a nice way to put it without me seeming like I’m ranting. I’m not ranting. I see a path.”

How did Drake respond to Wiley?

Drake has not responded to Wiley’s recent comments, however Drake previously addressed Wiley’s earlier attacks in a radio show with 1Xtra.

He said, “It is what it is. I see a lot and I’ll never understand how supporting somebody’s song or even going a step further and giving somebody a song or linking up…I’ll never understand how that’s not viewed as something admirable but I guess people have their own outlook on it.”

He then went on to name Wiley specifically, he said, “I’ll just say his name because that was some goofy sh*t... I was like, ‘Dude what are you talking about? They have tunes that are ringing off. Anybody that’s on now, what are you guys talking about?’”