Drake’s Beef on SNL
Exposing our deepest feelings by roasting cleaning ladies
Aubrey Graham, Drizzy, Jimmy Brooks, 6 God, Champagne Papi, Mr. OVOXO, Drake. His abundance of epithets is representative of just how far-ranging his persona spreads. Drake is undoubtedly one of the most influential, successful, and important figures in pop culture. There’s literally a Wikipedia page dedicated solely to a list of awards and nominations received by Drake; his significance in this decade cannot be understated.
Following his 2016 release of the dancehall-influenced, hip hop album Views that obliterated all kinds of Billboard, sales, or streaming records, Drake guest hosted Saturday Night Live. In Drake’s Beef, one of the funniest skits of the night, we begin in a scene of normal SNL office banter. That is, until Drake asks for help working the T.V., and Pete Davidson gently pushes Drake’s metaphorical buttons for not understanding how to push a remote control’s literal buttons.
Following this seemingly typical workplace ribbing, and after Davidson even says, “I’m just kidding man,” comes the joke of the sketch. Drake, calm on the outside, but seething on the inside, launches into antagonistic, aggressive bars where he lays into Pete with devastating lines like “you skinny as hell” or “you think you funny, huh? Well, you ain’t Josh Gad.” Juxtaposed with the dark, dimly lit scene of Drake’s verse are reminiscent, black-and-white slow-motion cuts of reality. Within the dark garage itself are constant, erratic, and quick cuts enhancing the joke of Drake’s anger and hyper-masculine demeanor with what are actually weak lines.
Following this scene are continual escalations of similar scenarios where Drake gets his feelings hurt a little bit and goes into a hard rap. The immediate next scene is of Leslie Jones being distracted on her phone and not reciprocating Drake’s “what’s up, Leslie?” The slight escalation in this occurs with the addition of a hypeman posse backing Drake during his rap as well as gunshots at the end of the track.
Next up in Drake’s series of beefs is Aidy Bryant. Aidy unapologetically moves Drake’s hat from a seat so she can sit down without waiting for permission from Drake. As per tradition, Drake begins his zealous tirade against Aidy’s blasphemous act. This time, he replaces his crew of thugs with a trio of female background dancers and a car. Further steps are made in that not only are there gun shots, but there is an air horn now too. Also, like in the first scene, he again mentions Josh Gad, saying “if Josh Gad were here, he would’ve made me laugh.”
The skit then continues to the next scene, where Drake is seen with some Fiji water. Nusretta — who also happens to be an actual cleaning lady at NBC — cruelly snatches away Drake’s water and throws it away, when it wasn’t quite empty yet.
Now begins a change in scenery. Drake is on a rooftop with spotlights moving around behind him. Accompanied with this set change also seems to be a hike in intensity of lyrics, with Drake calling poor Nusretta a “fucking ice queen.” He harks back to his previous encounters, lamenting “now I got no friends, and I got no water, and I lost my hat.” The semi-automatic, staccato gunshots have now become a rapid-fire torrent equalling Drake’s rising anger at SNL and NBC employees.
Finally, the ultimate scene’s perpetrator is Lorne Michaels, creator and producer of SNL. Michaels tells Drake that he’s doing “a good job.” Drake takes deep offense to this, because he believes that he’s “doing great,” therefore deserving much greater praise, and begins his most ferocious verse yet, even going so far as to telling Michaels to “suck [his] dick.” With this increased aggression comes a more intense set design including background dancers, a fog machine, and the machine gun to close the sketch out.
Now, to address the most important question about this skit, nobody knows why Josh Gad is so fervently revered as a comedy genius by Drake. In an interview on SiriusXM, Gad said “Why is Drake obsessed with me and rapping about me on SNL? You know, I would like to think that I’ve touched him in some way over the years. I have no fucking clue. That was the most random thing I’ve ever seen.” Now, Drake might not be so obsessed with Olaf, the lovable, musical snowman sidekick from Frozen, but maybe the actual writer, Will Stephen, has some sort of connection or background with him.
No, no he doesn’t. Gad has never been on SNL nor has he ever publicly interacted with Will Stephen. Now, unfortunately, we have to move on from the great Josh Gad and actually analyze the sketch. In an interview with Mashable, Will Stephen reveals his motivations for writing the sketch. It mainly hinged on two points: “after the whole Meek Mill thing, diss tracks seemed like pretty ripe territory,” and “combining that aggressive, vengeful hip-hop machismo with Drake’s famous sensitive side.”
The “Meek Mill thing” references the feud between Meek Mill and Drake, first originating in July of 2015, when Meek tweeted “[Drake] don’t write his own raps! That’s why he ain’t tweet my album because we found out!” thus accusing Drake of using a ghost writer for his feature on Meek’s album, Dreams Worth More Than Money.
The beef exploded, with huge names in hip hop from Nicki Minaj to Noah “40” Shebib — Drake’s producer — weighing in. Eventually, it culminated in a back and forth of diss tracks with Drake having the final word in “Back to Back,” releasing just four days after his first diss track, “Charged Up.” “Back to Back” actually serves as the instrumental for Drake’s Beef, a clear nod to his involvement with Meek. Also, the cover art for “Back to Back” is particularly relevant, depicting Joe Carter hitting the winning home run for the Toronto — Drake’s hometown — Blue Jays against the Philadelphia — Meek’s hometown — Phillies in 1993. This Meek Mill beef isn’t an isolated incident. Drake has been relatively infamous for constantly being involved in drama, first with Chris Brown in 2012 ; then when he was punched by Diddy in 2014; Jay-Z; Common; The Weeknd; Kendrick Lamar, and the list goes on.
Drake seems to always be implicated in some sort of public spectacle, and this feeds perfectly into the SNL sketch, because just like in real life, he’s so easily affected by tiny meaningless comments or actions which incite an absurd disproportionate response, and he’s feuding with every person in the SNL office like how he always has beef with everyone in hip hop.
Stephen’s other point about “Drake’s sensitive side” plays into this same dynamic. Drake’s sensitivity and emotional nature is particularly interesting to look at in terms of how this reputation grew. His childhood is one unlike most rappers. He was raised under a Jewish mom in a middle class home. Because of this, he’s looked down on, because he doesn’t have that street credibility of being raised in the ghetto, and as a result, he doesn’t truly understand the plight of the hip hop community, making him more of a softie and baby. Contributing to this image also, is his role in Degrassi. He played Jimmy Brooks, a wheelchair-bound scrawny kid coming from a rich family. Obviously, nobody wants to think of a disabled kid as a masculine, stoic persona, but rather as a pansy.
Further, Drake’s public image creates a cyclical perpetuation of his reputation. His “meme-ability” diminishes his ability to be taken seriously. From the “Hotline Bling” memes to YOLO to his reputation as a source for Instagram captions for girls to even the “God’s Plan” video now, Drake is constantly in the public eye as a relatively wholesome figure who’s different from most other rappers.
Perhaps the reason why we so constantly make fun of Drake is because we relate so heartily to Drake. Charles Holmes of Complex describes it as this: “Drake is pure angst in a world moving impossibly fast. In his lyrics is the pain of every ex that moved on, dream girl that swiped left, and DM left unanswered. We make fun of Drake, because we are Drake.” In an article published by the Cambridge University Press, Kris Singh and Dale Tracy argue “as an artist foregrounding in hip hop topics such as the emotional experience of private relationships, Drake has the opportunity to shape the conceptions of masculinity that are especially hardened in the context of male rappers … Drake has established himself as a genuine person making intimate connections with his fans.” In our own innermost thoughts, we feel like Drake’s lyrics, but we don’t want to admit it, so as an innate defense mechanism, we instinctually crack jokes about how milquetoast he is, ignoring the fact that we might feel the exact same way. Going back to the sketch, we all feel stung when people might make some playful comment or when someone doesn’t praise us the way that we want. Obviously, we don’t go into a choleric freestyle, but we do feel a little bit hurt and a little bit wronged when those things occur.
Further, Drake doesn’t shy away from his reputation and public image. On the contrary, he embraces it. He does skits like this; the last time he hosted SNL he had a monologue making fun of the popularization of “YOLO” as well as his Jewish background; he’s posted on Instagram an image with the caption of “Drake Tears for Sale 2015,” mocking his own sensitive lyrics. He’s content and confident enough in himself that the outward reaction to his actions doesn’t affect him.
Therein lies Drake’s genius. He’s exposing and normalizing emotional responses to seemingly small issues, without a care in the world what anybody else thinks about him. He demands respect based on his commercial success, his relatively clean and wholesome image, and his philanthropic nature, recently notably donating the entire “God’s Plan” music video budget. Despite constant quips and slights against him, Aubrey Graham’s ability to change and alter our concepts of masculinity, emotion, and sensitivity by uncovering our closest sentiments is unparalleled.