Drake was born in Toronto and to an American father and a European Jewish mother, so why does he sometimes slip into a Jamaican patois? He’s also known, on albums like Views and this year’s More Life, for dropping references to the island’s artists and adopting the influence of Jamaican dancehall. Vox tackles this question in a new video that serves as a response to people on the internet asking, as they put it, “whether all of this is authentic or if Drake is taking advantage of some convenient cultural cache.”
What this entails is a deeper look into both Drake’s upbringing in Toronto, but also the city’s abundance of Jamaican immigrants. Those immigrants tend to occupy neighborhoods on the east and west sides of the city, where Drake spent his early childhood and, around the turn of the century, filmed Degrassi. By Vox’s estimation, this isn’t a case of cultural appropriation, but, rather, a display of pride for his hometown.
Hey, at least he’s not doing this.