Drake might know something about the future of celebrity documentaries. On Tuesday, he shared a massive data dump, reportedly 100 gigabytes of behind-the-scenes footage and unreleased music, via a burner Instagram account that he apparently kept under wraps for several months. Browsing through the files feels like putting together a fan-made documentary about Drake’s generation-spanning career. There’s footage of a baby-faced Drake from 2008 reminiscing about the Chevy Malibu with the stained seats that he used to drive, a rehearsal video of Drake and Rihanna in the Watch out Era, a clip of Drake talking to his mother while he and Rihanna record “Too Good” from Views (apparently the song is about Serena Williams).
The collection is certainly one of the first times a star as big as Drake has achieved this level of transparency. There are moments of silly celebration and a plethora of discarded ideas, including an alternative Certified Loverboy cover that the world should be thankful never saw the light of day. Overall, it’s an effective respite from a summer marked by disses directed at him. No matter what you think of him, Drake was at the center of pop culture for nearly two decades, and a glimpse into the moments that got us here is captivating for any music fan.
However, 100GB is a lot and it might take some time to work through it all, so here are some of the key takeaways from Drizzy’s big data dump.
Three unreleased songs
The big news from Drake’s release is three new songs, “It’s Up” featuring Young Thug and 21 Savage, “Blue Green Red” and “Housekeeping Knows” featuring Latto. The tracks are Drake’s first new songs since “The Heart pt. 6,” on which he took an embarrassingly defensive stance. Here, Drake is back in classic form, offering a selection of different styles, from the raw, hard-hitting raps of “It’s Up” to the patois-heavy “Blue Green Red” to the smooth, bouncy “Housekeeping Knows.” While each track is completely different, it offers an example of something Drake does well.
Ping-Pong and Pickup with Steph Curry
Among the more exciting, but also more mundane, shots of the dump (there are dozens of moody shots of trees blowing in the wind from hotel windows) is a clip of Drake playing ping pong with Steph Curry, both of whom are clearly fiercely ambitious. In the cinéma vérité style of an A24 film, the scene cuts to the crew playing an impromptu game with Steph, who is wearing jeans and a T-shirt and emptying a couple of buckets.
“Hotline Bling“Could have shown the future
Buried in the many folders is a ton of footage from when Drake was recording his hit “Hotline Bling.” In one clip, Drake is lying on a sofa explaining the origin of the song’s title. Apparently, it’s about a woman he had previous relationships with whose phone rang so often after sex that he saved it in his phone as Hotline Bling… Drake’s high point. More interesting, however, is the revelation that Drake intended for Future to have a verse on the song, a decision that could well have changed the course of human history.
Unpublished Cover art
There’s more than audio and video here. Several folders of alternate album art provide a rare glimpse into the process behind some of Drake’s biggest releases. It’s also the latest example that Drake may to fearless when it comes to transparency, as some of the covers for Certified Loverboy— particularly a drawing of Drake looking out the window at a sea of beautiful, barely clothed women — probably should have just been deleted. But one appreciates Drake’s commitment to this part.
A reference for Kanye’s “Oops”
Since everything Drake is doing now is somehow related to the various disputes that have made up much of his career over the past few years, a clip of Drake making the reference track for what would eventually become Kanye’s “Yikes” from his 2018 album, HerAlthough Drake was properly credited as the song’s writer, footage of the process has reignited controversy over claims that Drake himself was working with ghostwriters.
Drake loves Lil Yachty’s song “Poland”
There are plenty of BTS clips of Drake and co. fooling around in the studio—in one of them, where Drake is recording “Middle of the Ocean,” Lil Yachty can be heard in the background asking, “What the fuck is Vava?” One of the most interesting clips, however, is Drake raving about Lil Yachty’s surprisingly powerful viral hit “Poland.” In the clip, Drake says no other artist could have made such a catchy single because no other artist is as free-spirited as Yachty. High praise, really.
A European tour?
One of the photos from Drake’s Burner page features a stack of promotional materials titled “No One Likes Us” with “Europe 2024” stamped underneath, fueling rumors of a European tour that would be Drake’s first European tour since 2019. This title would, of course, be a reference to Kendrick’s now infamous diss “Not Like Us,” which has spent the past 13 weeks near the top of the charts and makes a number of personal and professional allegations against Drake. If that is indeed the name of his tour, it’s sure to make for an interesting few months for rap fans on both sides of the argument.
