Authenticity has long been a point of personal pride for Drake. Since Meek Mill called his authorship into question in the summer of 2015, Drizzy has recalibrated his approach to music-making, dialing back the raps and transitioning into a style that samples black dance music around the world. Some might call it an identity crisis, if it hadn’t earned him his first ever solo No. 1. His new project More Life, which he’s made a point of branding a “playlist,” scans like 80 minutes of club music from Canada, American, the UK, the West Indies, and Africa on shuffle. It’s a release that accidentally interrogates his authenticity far more deeply than any ghostwriting allegations ever could. As he circles the globe on More Life, Drake ends up posing intriguing questions about art’s lineage through migration and who gets to claim the culture of others.
To understand Drake’s world and map his connections to these sounds, it is important to understand the way the people of Canada, the Caribbean, and Africa are linked. All black culture and music in the wake of the African diaspora shares some similar DNA, despite some subtle recoding in sound and slang by region. A genre like UK grime traces its roots back to jungle and dancehall. Dancehall often shares similar elements with Afrobeat. Through immigrants, the music and its mannerisms reached Canada, where it has seeped into the very fabric of Drake’s home country.
According to Statistics Canada, Canadians from the Caribbean are one of the “largest non-European ethnic-origin groups” in the country. Most of those immigrants made homes in Toronto and Montreal and feel “a sense of belonging,” according to the Ethnic Diversity Survey. Toronto rapper Kardinal Offishall, long an ambassador for Canadian rap with ties to the West Indies, made the relationship plain over the weekend. “Toronto been about Caribbean culture before I did Bakardi Slang. It’s LITERALLY our history,” he wrote on Twitter. “The Caribbean diaspora is alive all over the world. It’s up to fans to learn our culture...not water it down for a mainstream audience.”
Offishall is absolutely right about one thing: Toronto has become a melting pot for Caribbean culture. The lineage has blurred. But he is also the child of Jamaican immigrants, a clear inheritor of island culture. On “BaKardi Slang,” he stood directly at the intersection of these two places. That isn’t to say that Drake, the son of a black man from Tennessee and a Jewish woman from Canada, can’t also be shaped by the culture of the West Indies—which would undoubtedly have been a presence in his life growing up in Toronto—but it would be misrepresentation to call it his own.
It’s worth noting that many people are influenced by the interlocking yet diverse web of black music woven by the diaspora, but Drake is the only one trying to claim all of it at once, which speaks to both the scope of his ambition and the depth of his hubris. One minute he’s using riddims ascribed to the clan name of Nelson Mandela, the next he’s arm-in-arm with UK rapper Giggs kissing his teeth. Sometimes he’s channeling Jamaican patois. Others he’s, as the Brits say, a roadman. On a song called “Portland,” he proudly proclaims, “It’s all Habibis ting.” There’s a song called “Gyalchester.” *More Life *will make you wonder, *Where is Drake from on this song? *Canada? South Africa? Jamaica? London? Atlanta? Where will he be from next? Is he at the center of the diaspora, or merely at its furthest reaches, following footprints in hopes of a hit? It isn’t that Drake is unfit to channel any of these places and things (because many of them overlap); it’s that he’s convinced he has a right to every one of them. Culture isn’t an iPhone skin—you don’t just shed one for another because it’s trendy.
For one thing, it might be easier to receive Drake as the conduit for world music if he wasn’t already a notorious wave-rider. He took half the Weeknd’s album to make Take Care; hopped on remixes of Migos’ “Versace,” iLoveMakonnen’s “Tuesday,” and Wizkid’s “Ojuelegba” to share in their moments; torpedoed “Cha Cha”’s chart run with “Hotline Bling” (premiered on OVO Sound Radio as a “Cha Cha” remix); sapped the energies of international sensations for “One Dance” and “Controlla” (which arrived on Views without the leaked Popcaan verse); and fast-tracked What a Time to Be Alive with Future and Metro Boomin to capitalize on their momentum. He’s used Bun B as his Houston liaison and Aaliyah as his unwitting R&B talisman. He’s a swag vampire, a sound poacher, and an identity thief. It’s hard to believe his work as a global ambassador isn’t also mostly self-serving, or at least in service of building his wider OVO brand. In a bit of irony, Drake, who is constantly rapping about people using him for their gain, does exactly that to everyone else.
But Drake safeguards himself from these kinds of criticisms by allying with a well-respected delegate from a given genre or region—often making sure their interests align with his. These relationships are transactional, collabs offered from Drake under the guise of a look but really used to bolster his claim to a person or place’s slang or sound or hype. They provide built-in deniability against detractors who might label him an interloper or appropriator.
With these things in mind, it makes sense he’d deem More Life a “playlist”—like he’s Zane Lowe broadcasting an assortment of songs he’s compiled as the gatekeeper for international vibes. As Drake producer Nineteen85 explained it: “[Drake’s] so aware of what everybody else is doing musically that he likes to introduce new music and new artists to the rest of the world.” He sees himself as a curator and a tastemaker. But really, he’s something of a well-informed cultural tourist. Here are the destinations he hails from on More Life, and the talented friends who stamp his work visas.
London via Skepta + Giggs
Though there are mentions of Toronto on “No Long Talk,” the track is heavily indebted to the UK rap and grime scenes. As if to underscore this point, Drake enlists British rapper Giggs for the first of two features on More Life (the second of which, “KMT,” not only dives waist deep into Caribbean slang but also bites Xxxtenacion’s “Look At Me.”) On “No Long Talk,” Drake sounds like a different person calling man yutes and saying they’re on a diss ting. But with Giggs at his back, he’s confident. As if in need of another cosigner on his rep, Skepta later gets his own interlude.
Nigeria via Wizkid
Another song on More Life that seems to cross-pollinate culturally, “Madiba Riddim” has a distinctly Afrobeat pulse and gets its name from a South African clan name and Jamaican patois. “People change, I’m not surprised/Devil’s working overtime/Voodoo spells put on my life,” he sings. Wizkid isn’t featured on “Madiba Riddim,” but his presence (or lack thereof) is clearly felt. The song doesn’t sonically stray too far from their past collaborations, including “One Dance” but particularly Wizkid’s “Hush Up the Silence.” Wizkid is something of an avatar for all of Drake’s deepest excursions into Afrobeat. It’s somewhat telling that the two still haven’t met yet.
Jamaica via Popcaan
It isn’t a coincidence that Drake opens “Blem” repeating the word “unruly,” a favorite tag of Popcaan, one of dancehall’s brightest stars. The song repurposes the key components of Popcaan’s pop dancehall: it’s breezy and wine-friendly. There’s talk of forwarding to the islands, while Drake deems a lover’s ex a wasteman. The title and hook use UK slang derived from faux patois. Perhaps there’s a (better) Popcaan version of this song somewhere waiting to be leaked.
South Africa via Black Coffee + Bucie
For a slight change of pace, Drake ventures to South Africa for this Afro-house cut, linking up with breakout producer and DJ Black Coffee. (South African singer Bucie also has a songwriting credit.) “Get It Together” has a distinctly African flavor with thumping polyrhythms that propel the track forward. “The African rhythm, even when it’s not obvious, is in our music,” Coffee told Pitchfork in September. “I think our responsibility now is to make sure that it goes to the mainstage, and it’s not pigeonholed to ‘world music’ or put on smaller stages as ‘world music artists.’ We can be where everyone is.” It’s safe to say this collaboration is putting those words into practice.
Atlanta via Young Thug + 2 Chainz
It often goes unrecognized because the Atlanta sound has become so prevalent, but Drake has made himself at home in the city. The Toronto nickname he adopted—“6 Man”—also works with a zone on Atlanta’s Eastside, underscored by his Gucci Mane flow on the *If You’re Reading This… *track. Then there’s the whole “Versace” remix, and What a Time To Be Alive (which at one point Future claimed “never happened”). Not to mention that at least one Atlanta rapper literally wrote raps for him. On “Sacrifices,” Drake enlists tourmate Young Thug and longtime collaborator 2 Chainz, two of Atlanta’s greatest treasures, to do much of the heavy lifting. It isn’t heavily indebted to trap the way opener “Free Smoke” is, but it is a prime example of the way Drake turns connections into cultural capital—capital he’ll spend the next time he needs cool points to mend his image.
