“100 gigs on your headtop.”
On the afternoon of Aug. 6, Drake surprised everyone by unveiling a new website full of hours worth of footage and hundreds of photos that tell the story of his creative process across his decade-plus career.
Although some Drake fans may have been disappointed that only 28 megabytes of those 100 gigs was new music, there was still plenty of great brand new behind the scenes content to appreciate.
However, we totally understand why you wouldn’t want to sit in front of your laptop to comb through 100 gigabytes worth of photos and videos. Admittedly, we didn’t watch every single minute of it either. But we did do some of the hard work for you to uncover the coolest style-related moments from the content dump. Check out our favorites below.
Receiving Cam’ron’s Pink Fur at The Apollo
This was probably our favorite footage from the entire dump. The clip documents the first time that Drake received Cam’ron’s iconic pink fur coat and headband ahead of his Apollo Theater show in January 2023. He’s even thanking Cam via FaceTime as he unbags the coat.
It’s no secret that Drake is a bit of a rap nerd and has an appreciation for the various artifacts that help tell its story. But if you need further proof, this clip confirms it. The Toronto rapper seems awestruck to even be in the same room as the fluffy outerwear.
“This needs to be in a museum somewhere,” he says. “I grew up staring at this jacket. This is fucked up.”
He also references the beef between Cam’ron and Jay-Z that was going on back when the Dipset member originally wore the coat to the Baby Phat show in 2002. “I can feel the beef. I feel like I hate HOV right now,” says Drake with a laugh.
The Unused Cover Art
The internet has focused on one particular image that was being considered as the cover of Certified Lover Boy before the infamous pregnant emoji collage was settled on. Say what you will about the scrapped artwork—which depicted Drake peering into a room full of naked women—it is still interesting to rifle through some of the promotional graphics that were left on the cutting room floor for a bunch of Drake’s recent albums, singles, and tour posters. 100 files were situated in a folder titled “Red Lebanese,” which shares a name with a Parisian publishing house and studio. Based on the similarities, it may have had a hand in creating some of the imagery we see.
In addition to the polarizing CLB alternate cover, we also got a look at some unused CLB merch designs featuring sketches of women, cover for For All the Dogs, promo for the It’s All a Blur tour featuring devilish doodles, back cover art for Dark Lane Demo Tapes (which at one point was titled Care Package 2), and more. Considering the general public is usually only privy to what makes it to record stores and streaming apps, it’s cool to get a peek behind the curtain at all of the possible visuals that were considered for these projects. We also can’t help but wonder how some of them were scrapped in favor of the final product. Art is subjective, but some of these CLB covers seem so much better than what we got.
Clips From the 2018 Brooklyn Mirage Show With Virgil Abloh
Drake’s admiration of Virgil Abloh has been well documented over the years. This new clip of a 2018 party at The Brooklyn Mirage where Abloh DJ’d with Drake running through some of his biggest records of that era is cool to see. Abloh had his thumbprint on so many important elements of popular culture—not just fashion design—and clips like this are further proof of that. Long live Virgil.
Air Drake and Air Drake II Mockups
Drake’s virtual hard drive also gave us a closer look at how the paint job on his notorious private plane, Air Drake, came to be. There are pitch decks and reference imagery for the liveries and slogans that were considered before settling on its signature cloud paint job designed by Abloh. It seems like lightning bolts were the original plan. “Chances Are She’s On Board” was considered for the undercarriage messaging (feels very Drake-y) before settling on “If You’re Reading This We Left” (equally as Drake-y).
We were also given a look at the ideas for Air Drake 2 (yes, he was going to have a second personal aircraft). The idea was to give it a chrome paint job inspired by Hajime Sorayama’s robots. Maybe we’ll still see this come to fruition one day. Whether we do or not, it’s pretty unbelievable that two private Boeing 757s was an achievable feat for one person.
Wearing All of Slick Rick’s Chains
While not confirmed, we assume this clip came from the “No Stylist” video shoot. Slick Rick is featured on the cover art and appears in the video that originally dropped back in 2018. Known as a godfather of custom jewelry in the hip-hop world, The Ruler showed up rocking way too many gold and diamond chains around his neck. Of course, Drake had to try them on for a photo next to the hip-hop pioneer. Remember we said he was a rap nerd?
The ‘143 Rolexes in My Collection’ Line on ‘It’s Up’
We can’t forget about the new music. On the Young Thug and 21 Savage-assisted track “It’s Up” (the best of the three-pack), Drake makes sure to do some flexing. He raps about his extensive collection of Rolex watches. He apparently owns 143 of the iconic Swiss timepieces, to be exact (we wouldn’t be surprised if this number has increased since the recording of the verse). As shocking as the number was initially, we have seen a ton of valuable Rolexes strapped around Drake’s wrist over the years, from exclusive Chrome Hearts customs to Day-Dates with turquoise dials and diamond bezels. We don’t blame him. We’d probably be splurging on timepieces too if we were winning multi-million roulette spins in our spare time.
“Nonstop” in Color
Another cool aspect of the 100gigs site is all of the raw footage from some of Drake’s biggest music videos. The standout is the color footage of Scorpion standout “Nonstop.” The official video, directed by Drake’s longtime go-to director Theo Skudra, is black and white. It depicts Drake moving through the streets of London atop double-decker buses, hitting the Wireless Fest stage, and enjoying some afternoon tea on a balcony. Getting to see some of the footage in its original form, stuff that usually doesn’t see the light of day, was an interesting look at Skudra’s creative process, even if the clips are unedited without sound.
Read the full article here
