Drake is stirring the pot again on his rap beef with Kanye West -- taking a new shot at the guy in a song he just dropped with Trippie Redd ... and it might be the ultimate insult.

The rapper is featured on TR's new track, "Betrayal," and at one point in Drizzy's verse, he brings up Mr. West by name ... acknowledging that they are, indeed, still apparently beefing -- while also going so far as to call Kanye "burnt out" ... and noting it's irrelevant to him.

Here's how the Kanye bar goes ... "All these fools I'm beefin' that I barely know // Forty-five, forty-four (Burned out), let it go // Ye ain't changin' s*** for me, it's set in stone." He adds ... "Rollin' stones, heavy stones (PinkGrillz) // Precious stone, let me make my presence known."

The "Ye" reference could possibly be interpreted as "they" or "you" -- but based on Drake touching Kanye's exact age (44) ... it seems clear he meant the former with some clever word play. The folks over at Genius heard it too ... they wrote out the lyric as "Ye."

Now, for some analysis -- as to why Drake is randomly bringing up Kanye again after years have passed since they beefed, with Pusha T in the mix, is anyone's guess at this point.

However, some people have a theory on these old foes -- there's been speculation of late that Kanye is, perhaps, trying to set up his "Donda" release so that it lines up with Drake's "Certified Lover Boy" album ... which he's on record as saying would be out by the end of summer at the latest. That's just a few weeks away ... and neither project has dropped.

There's no evidence to prove it one way or another ... but the fact that Kanye continues to delay the release date -- with seemingly no end in sight -- is curious in this context. That, coupled with the fact that Drake's going after him anew, is even more eyebrow-raising.

In any case, we're always here for some new beef. And, if it means more music from these two in the process ... we'll take it and then some. Ball's in your court, Ye (we think).