There\u2019s a lot to unpack as this proud son of Toronto closes in on 40 \u2013 from his gambling to his very public dates. Here goes!<\/p>\n
Even if you can only name a handful of rappers, Drake is probably one of them. Not so many years ago, he was among the planet\u2019s biggest celebrities, named in the same breath as Taylor Swift and Beyonc\u00e9 and breaking chart records set by the Beatles. Many of his dozens of hit singles \u2013 Work, One Dance, Hotline Bling and God\u2019s Plan \u2013 were ubiquitous, among the last truly crossover radio hits.<\/p>\n
Drake is still landing chart spots (if not critical acclaim), but now it\u2019s his foray into the \u201ccreator economy\u201d that\u2019s raising eyebrows \u2013 shilling for a crypto casino, fraternising with manosphere influencers and, just last weekend, live-streaming dates with OnlyFans models. So what\u2019s this all about? Is Toronto\u2019s once-golden boy having a midlife crisis \u2013 or is it a media-savvy pivot? Here\u2019s how Drake got caught up in the \u201ccreator economy\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Drake appeared as the eligible bachelor on a speed-dating show on the live-streaming platform Kick, the online home to many controversial internet celebrities such as the \u201clooksmaxxer\u201d Clavicular. Though the \u201c20-v-1 challenge\u201d is an established format (named for the women-to-men ratio), Drake is by far the biggest name to have ever taken part. This particular broadcast played out like a Bad Place Blind Dates, over three desultory hours. Twenty women, mostly performers on the adult platform OnlyFans, competed for Drake\u2019s affections along with cash prizes, holidays and Herm\u00e8s bags in bawdy challenges such as \u201cWife, Pipe, Bestie\u201d. (You may know it as \u201cKiss, Marry, Kill\u201d.) Among them was Lily Phillips, the Briton notorious for a 2024 stunt in which she attempted to have sex with 100 men in 24 hours. The chosen lucky lady was a cosplay creator and \u201cgoth baddie\u201d named Pinkchyu, who requested, as her prize, that Drake buy her mother a house and also bark like a dog. He agreed to both. Complex reported he was \u201clike a poodle\u201d. Rest easy, Cilla Black: you were not cut out for this world.<\/p>\n
Drake\u2019s participation came as part of a broader partnership with Australian crypto-gambling platform Stake, which backs Kick. According to the Financial Times, Drake was an early adopter of the platform, betting with bitcoin, and became a brand ambassador in 2022, in a deal reportedly worth $100m a year. Now the rapper drives traffic by live-streaming himself gambling, giving away money and performing social-media-friendly stunts. Last year, a video of Drake apparently being bothered by a drone at his Sydney penthouse went viral before many users clocked that it was a staged ad. Last month, a video was \u201cclipped\u201d from a stream, showing Drake saying \u201cOh my God\u201d 70 times after a big win. Drake\u2019s golden deal with the gambling company has drawn scrutiny: an investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek found that the rapper saw four times as much success playing Stake\u2019s slot machines as the average person (according to Bloomberg\u2019s methodology, which is disputed by Stake). He\u2019s also been accused in a class action lawsuit of using the platform to inflate streams of his songs, although a federal judge has paused the lawsuit, stating the plaintiffs must first complete arbitration.<\/p>\n
Drake is still making music, and even swamping the charts, having put out three albums back in May \u2013 but his priorities have been shifting for a while. In 2023, he rapped: \u201cMy youngins richer than you rappers and they all stream.\u201d Lately he\u2019s been running with the new-gen influencers Adin Ross and Kai Cenat, twentysomethings with millions of followers. Drake has even been trying to ingratiate himself with the next new gen, delivering an (prerecorded) address and free merch to Cenat\u2019s Streamer University bootcamp last month.<\/p>\n
Drake has always been corny, cringe and perhaps too comfortable with self-deprecation. Now, some say his flirtations with content are bringing out the worst of those tendencies, shifting his public persona and potentially tarnishing his legacy. In GQ, Josiah Gogarty noted that Drake\u2019s fraternising with streamers has him increasingly skirting the online manosphere, noting that the speed-dating \u201cmeat market\u201d was also hosted by Kyle Forgeard, from the Trump-supporting Nelk Boys gang of YouTubers. Drake himself can seem to provoke people online, Gogarty argued, pointing to his \u201cwhiny, almost incel-coded\u201d posts, such as an Instagram list of \u201creasons why I\u2019m single \u2026 I care too deeply.\u201d Having previously penned a \u201cjoyful women\u2019s-empowerment anthem\u201d (per the New Yorker!) in Nice For What, and declared himself a Certified Lover Boy, Drake\u2019s latest hit is called Janice, STFU. By way of apology, in June, he threw some \u201cJanice-only parties\u201d, with government ID a requirement of entry. As Gogarty wondered: \u201cIs Drake a better rage baiter than rapper now?\u201d<\/p>\n
Some have drawn a link between Drake\u2019s recent activities \u2013 participating in online \u201cchallenges\u201d, hanging out with twentysomethings, gambling, gaming and degrading himself in front of young women \u2013 with his looming milestone birthday. Vulture declared of the live-dating stream: \u201cThis is Drake\u2019s midlife crisis.\u201d The past few years have not been kind to October\u2019s Very Own (setting aside its co-founder\u2019s vast fame and fortune, of course). The last time Drake was central to the cultural conversation was early 2024, and his highly public feud with Kendrick Lamar. Lamar was not only widely deemed the victor with his record-breaking, Grammy-winning diss track Not Like Us \u2013 but took his victory lap at the Super Bowl, leading seemingly the entire stadium in a rap that accuses Drake of being a paedophile. To be very clear, Drake has denied this.<\/p>\n
Those of us who had time for the old Drake might be bewildered by his evolution, if not already long checked out. But he\u2019s likely being driven by the changing cultural tides. The monoculture by which he became a household name is mostly gone, receding in memory with millennials\u2019 youth, while younger audiences don\u2019t draw the same distinctions between streamers and celebrities, or social-media stunts and \u201cauthentic\u201d entertainment. Just as you may know someone valiantly experimenting with the front-facing camera on Instagram, traditional stars not yet close to retirement are feeling the pressure to adapt. (See Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet\u2019s #sponcon for the prediction market Kalshi.) Drake\u2019s pivot to influencer mode is arguably one of his most savvy, investing his celebrity in growing economies and platforms seeking mainstream respectability, and reinventing himself with younger generations. Rather than going through a midlife crisis, Drake may be once again ahead of the curve.<\/p>\n