One thing you’ve got to give Drake credit for — it’s almost impossible to guess his next move.
As his recent, increasingly ugly feud with Kendrick Lamar slowly recedes from view, it seems like Drake is in the mood for something a little more fun.
Late on Monday, Toronto comedian and content creator Snowd4y shared a new version of his viral track “Wah Gwan Delilah” — a ridiculous parody of the 2005 emo-pop classic “Hey There Delilah” by Plain White T’s — featuring the Toronto rapper.
Peppered with references to Toronto and the broader GTA, Snowd4y and Drake sing in an exaggerated accent peppered with local slang. (The accent is based on a multi-ethnic dialect sometimes referred to as Multicultural Toronto English, or MTE.)
“Wah gwan, Delilah? Know I’m late ‘cause there’s bare traffic,” Drake sing-raps in his verse, dropping Toronto slang like “geeked” (very stoned), “cheesed” (frustrated), “beat” (ugly) and more.
The remix lit up the internet, sparking a deluge of negative reaction on social media.
“(T) his is the worst thing Drake has ever made,” one user wrote on X, garnering thousands of likes.
“Kendrick accused Drake of being a culture vulture,” wrote another user. “Now Drake is putting out songs sounding Jamaican.”
Plenty of listeners were so flabbergasted by the track that they assumed it was AI-generated — a rumour Drake apparently dispelled when he shared the song on his Instagram story last night.
Hot trash or a brilliant parody?
But according to Friday Ricky Dred — a Toronto-based rapper and content producer with the popular We Love Hip Hop Network — these reactions are missing the point.
“It’s all parody,” Ricky Dred told the Star, pushing back on the suggestion that Drake’s use of MTE amounts to appropriation. “(Drake and Snowd4y) are just doing an exaggerated version of the accent to poke fun at the Toronto man slang.”
“Seeing all these blog pages and people down south who are getting their panties in a bunch — like, it’s not that serious.”
As Ricky Dred points out, “Wah Gwan Delilah,” wasn’t made for a general audience — it was created for hose embedded in Toronto youth culture, who will catch the local references to Presto cards, Dundas Square, Jane and Finch etc.
For example, on the song’s outro, SnowD4y makes reference to Square One, a popular shopping centre in Mississauga.
Wah gwan, Sabrina? what’s it like in Mississauga?
I know you stay at home wit’ momma
So can you bless me with a dollar? Don’t be rude
Square One don’t shine as bright as you
I swear it’s, I swear it’s true
“You have to know Square One to get the joke,” Ricky Dred says, laughing. “I find it hilarious because I’m from here.”
Bad timing or buying time?
Drake has a long history of dipping his toes into Toronto youth culture. Back in 2015, he shared a remix of “Sweeterman,” a goofy, but undeniable viral song by Mississauga R & artist RamRiddlz. In 2017, Drake lampooned the Toronto accent in a comedy sketch with local content creator duo 4YallEntertainment.
Still, when Adriel Smiley — a music journalist, the co-host of Album Mode podcast and the host of The Cool Table radio show — first heard the track, he assumed it was fake.
“People just don’t know what to expect from Drake right now,” said Smiley, referencing the rapper’s recent (and unexpected) decision to rap over “BBL Drizzy,” an instrumental diss track produced by Metro Boomin. “People don’t know what to believe.”
Smiley admits the song is funny — “I’ll be reciting some of these lines with my friends for sure” — but he thinks it arrival in the wake of the feud with Lamar makes for awkward timing.
“Drake has done a good job making sure he can laugh at himself, but his fans took this beef pretty seriously,” he says. “I don’t everyone’s in the mood for jokes. It’s a hilarious song, but it fails to read the room.”
Ricky Dred sees things differently.
“I think he’s trying to lighten the mood,” he says. “At the same time, he’s trying to do what a lot of people have been (asking) him to do — which is connect back with the Toronto culture.”
“With this whole thing with Kendrick, what he was trying to expose is that Drake doesn’t have a base,” says Ricky Dred, referring to Lamar’s smash diss track “Not Like Us,” on which the Compton rapper accuses Drake of being a “colonizer,” who exploits Atlanta artists like Future, 21 Savage and Lil Baby for street cred.
“I think this is Drake’s way of showing people what — or part of what — Toronto culture is. It’s a rare moment when he doesn’t care if people in California understand, as long as people back home understand.”
Ricky Dred says the comments on X or on hip hop blogs look very different from the reactions on Toronto culture pages like Keep6Solid or StraightOuttaTheSix, which he says are filled with laughing emojis.
“This is not a serious stepping out; this is not Drake’s next move. It’s just buying Drake some time until he comes back, which is the next move, which should be his best move.”
