Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh dissect Drake's latest song, arguing its choreographed dance is a contrived "egg in the cookie" marketing tactic designed to manufacture virality rather than foster organic creativity. They contrast this calculated move with Jay-Z's authentic approach and speculate Drake released the track during contract negotiations to boost streaming leverage. While acknowledging Drake's history of popularizing trends like the Kiki Challenge, the hosts express skepticism about this specific stunt's longevity, concluding that despite his ability to force participation, the strategy feels less nuanced than previous viral moments. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Drake's Dance Move Strategy00:02:08
Drake you heard about Drake nah, I heard the song So Drake put a dance move in the fucking chorus.
Yeah, he literally took the.
I did a two-step and any time boogie, whatever it is.
He crafted a song specifically To break the internet right, which I wonder if the internet starts to, because right now, you know, the dance crazes are popping obviously TikTok Instagram, everybody's doing right, he puts the dance move in the song.
I wonder if the internet rejects it because they're like, hey hey hey, we know what you're trying to do to us.
I don't think they will.
Maybe, if he does this again I think this is the first time maybe people will be like, you're just gonna do, but I think they're still gonna do it.
But the best inter, even the kiki thing that wasn't supposed to be.
That's when it works, when it's not supposed to be a song, but he literally made it to be that.
He basically made the macarena yeah, yeah.
But I wonder if the internet and people will reject the uh, inorganicness of it.
Yeah, it's like, oh, you just trying to contrived, it's contrived, you're trying to make a viral craze, but I think people are still gonna put it on their tick tocks and that's what he's going for, right?
Yep, just put me at the, put me underneath your tick tocks.
Yes, do you think that they'll reject it.
Mark, I don't think so.
And to be completely frank, I think all the other parts of i'm gonna be frank and hey bro hey, it wasn't just white words, it was the way you say.
And to be completely frank no, no be is.
I've never seen someone be partially frank.
Can you be partially frank?
You don't do that.
No, I don't do that, you never.
I'm either entirely frank or i'm 0% frank.
Yo, but how would one be partially frank?
Well, let me be partially frank.
If you want me to be partially frank, i'll show you uh.
So yeah, to be partially frank, all right, go be completely frank, okay.
So to be completely 100 frank, I think that all the shit like memes and stuff that launched Drake's career, I kind of think he had oh, my god, I had a frank in my son.
The Partially Frank Debate00:14:50
Yeah no, if anything, I can use you being too frank right there.
Even your throat was like yo, chill out, bro.
There's a lot of franking coming out right now.
If somebody's used to having franks in his throat though, it's gotta be Gagnon, right?
That's what he's gagging on.
So I think, like all the memes that launched his career, I think he had an integral part in like creating this cultural, like the Kiki Challenge, all that shit, but that didn't launch him right, that happened no, no.
But like I think that's all stuff, that's like you think he's behind it, not behind it in like a literal way, but like he sees what's his name, Shiggy's doing it, and he goes, all right, i'm gonna retweet Shiggy and push Shiggy Young.
Like he sees people doing stuff, that's gonna make him pop.
He goes yep, and then he gives them platform, and then other people are like, oh, I want the platform that Drake gave that person, and then that's how he creates the movement.
Yeah 100, I I do think that's how he creates movement, but usually, so far with him, it started from an organic place that he rewarded.
I don't know though, because he's saying it's not even him.
Some of it him rewarding.
It is intentional in that like Oh, now everybody's going to start doing this thing because I rewarded it, and then my thing gets even more popular, and I get even more.
And that might be his mentality, right?
His mentality is.
Remember when he goes, Yo, make me the chips with the dip.
I want the chip with the dip when the Raptors were in the NBA Finals.
Yeah.
And he goes, Make a meme about it.
Like, he literally said in the quote, Chips with a dip, make it a meme.
Right.
And I think a lot of people in entertainment understand that.
We even say that sometimes there's, oh, that's going to be a funny meme.
This, that, the other.
So I don't think he's ignorant to it, right?
I just don't, I just think chips with dip is a chips with a dip is like a funny saying, and he's like calling out what he knows will happen.
Like when I had Black Young Son, Brilliant Idiots, he was like, if I do something on live and it doesn't become a meme, it was worthless.
Because he's going for the meme.
He goes, if you do the meme, people are promoting you without you doing nothing.
Right.
Interesting.
The fact that he's choreographing a dance into the song is one extra thing.
I think if you do something organic and cool where you're like, ah, no, they're going to meme this shit.
That's different than going, here is the way to do this.
So if he said, chips with the dip, yo, do that thing where you wait, and here's the meme.
You take the chip and you put it here and then post that.
Yeah.
Now it's nah, now we're like, yo, we could get the memes out.
We don't want to feel, we want to feel like we did it on our own.
This is what it is, Mark.
It's the egg in the fucking cookies.
So Mark was telling me about this shit where Betty Crocker back in the day, they had the cookie mix, everything already done.
You just add water and then mix it and it's done.
And bitches didn't buy it.
Why didn't they buy it?
They didn't feel like they were cooking.
So you know what Betty Crocker did?
Throw an egg in there.
They said, hey, could you just add an egg?
Now, there's already probably other eggs in the fucking batter.
Yeah.
But the fact that women added one egg, they thought that they were cooking and then sales skyrocketed.
Yeah.
I think what Drake did right now, he didn't let people add the egg.
He put the egg already in there.
I'm going to make this already finished for you.
Nah.
That's.
Nah.
Yeah.
Like, even if he did the song but didn't do the dance in the song, let people make up the dance themselves, I think that would be greater.
Because then a shiggy would come out with his version of dance and might even be crazier than the one that Drake crafted.
Yeah.
And then that would be the one copied.
But the fact that you established what the dance should look like, now there's no wiggle room.
Now we can't get creative.
Right?
We want to create the meme on something that gets us the credit.
Yeah.
We want to repost the thing so that we look cool, we look funny.
We don't just want to copy it.
You know where this dies if black people feel that way and they don't fuck with it.
Yes.
Because everything comes from what's the one right now?
The take your time challenge?
What's that one?
It's a bunch of girls who will like glow up, basically.
Like they'll show themselves looking kind of raggedy and then they'll like take a makeup brush on the camera and then you pull it away and then they look fine as fuck.
Right.
And then they'll like throw the makeup brush in a certain way and then the next person will look like they caught it from that exact angle and they're looking raggedy and then they glow up and then you pass it on.
Right.
There's a bunch of female comedians at a funny one.
Amina, Amani, Yamanika, Marie Faust and all them.
But it's just like a thing that you're seeing now.
Right.
And if black people don't fuck with this Drake thing, white people aren't going to fuck with it.
This take your time thing.
White people are going to eventually start doing it as well.
Yes.
Because it got cool, black people made it cool.
But if black people don't make this cool, it's not moving.
And then black people might feel like I can't do the egg.
Where's my egg?
I want to add the egg.
It's like that flip the switch challenge.
Yeah.
I forget the exact line, but flip the switch, it wasn't intended to be a TikTok sensation.
Maybe it was.
But it left enough breathing room for the person to go, yo, it'd be funny if we just switch outfits right on that line.
Yeah.
And then they switch.
He's literally like, take your foot, move it to the right, move it to the left.
Right.
He's got a hold down.
He's doing a fucking country line dance.
Yeah.
Country line dance don't go viral on TikTok.
Yeah.
So he is way less nuanced with this, and you think it's going to punish him.
Listen, he might be too big to fail.
He might be Boeing.
He might be GM.
He might be the banks.
We're like, he's so big, motherfuckers are going to do it anyway, etc.
That's what I think.
And that's possible.
But I think, at least in my experience watching these things, that the greatest viral moments appear organic.
Even if they're completely constructed and they completely manipulate you into doing a thing, they let you think you thought of it by yourself.
Yeah.
It's like we were talking about some magic tricks yesterday.
You want the person to think that they were in control of everything that happened here.
Even though you were pushed into a position to guess a number, pushed into position to guess a card.
You were manipulated into the choices you made, but you had to make them.
But if the magician was like, hey, choose this card, what's this card?
Now I'm going to guess your card.
It's like, motherfucker, you just told me.
You told me what card to guess.
Of course you could do it.
Right.
You got to nudge him.
It was push, not nudge.
Right.
And again, he might be too big to fail, but I think that that's a huge misstep for Drake with this.
Like, it's almost like a lack of confidence or something.
It's like, dog, have confidence if you just put it in the title.
They're going to do it.
Yeah, he don't normally come across thirsty like that.
I still think people are going to do it and then do their own variation of it and try to see who got the hottest one.
Yeah.
But I don't know if it'll be as viral as the ones that seem organic.
I don't think it can.
The Shiggy shit was so raw.
Shiggy was like for the people, man.
Shiggy was never on a show.
He was never on any of these corporate outlets.
He was for the people.
He was really everybody's best kept secret on Instagram.
He was just this hilarious guy that was doing these characters and having these funny skits all by himself.
It was low budget.
Yeah.
And then he created something that was hysterical.
He's in his fucking flip-flops doing this crazy dance on his street.
And then the fact that it touched Drake, everybody was like, yo, that's our guy.
I don't know if you can top down this thing.
So you're saying if Drake just put the lyrics, didn't show the dance, he'd be better off.
And then he'd be better off if he did that and then maybe tap somebody that he thought was cool and be like, yo, do me a favor, can you dance like this?
And I'm going to retweet it.
I don't think he would do that because I think it'd make him too vulnerable.
But if you're a real architect, though.
That's how I would do it.
I would go, yo, we just got to let it be at a certain point in time.
Yeah.
I think at a certain point in time, you just got to let the people decide.
Don't be the dictator.
Be the representative democracy.
You know, be the president that's out there going, I'm going to trick you motherfuckers into thinking you want this.
Patriot Act it.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, we're talking about Patriot Act, like, and we're talking about how people pass bills.
You know what you have to do?
You got to name the bill something that you can't say no to.
Imagine you're a senator of the United States of America, a patriot who believes in this country, and you vote no to the Patriot Act.
Now, what is the Patriot Act?
I get to steal all your shit and look at what you're doing.
That's not patriotic.
But if you name it that shit, how could you say no?
Yeah.
The I Want to Protect Women Act, you're going to say no?
Yeah.
You're going to vote that down?
It's a great move.
Yeah.
There's something to this.
No, 100%.
I'm curious to see if it doesn't resonate, bro.
And also, the dance is kind of boring.
Right?
Yeah, I highly doubt Drake can dance, but I think people will try to make it their little hot shit, and then it will die out a little quicker than like the Switch It Up or whatever these other challenges are.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I don't know, man.
Because that's the fun of the Switch It Up challenge is like you're seeing a dad do it with his daughter and he's wearing that.
Like, if you can find the fun in it, though, whatever.
And if you can find the fun in making it the silliest version of the dance or the hottest version of the dance, then we'll watch it.
Like, what's fun about that dance?
It's just side, side.
He didn't even see it.
I heard the song.
I didn't see the video.
I think it's contrived and it's boring.
I mean, yeah, I'm not surprised.
And this isn't a knock on Drake.
I think Drake is the best artist of his time.
Yeah.
Undeniably so in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
I mean, he came at the tail end of Jay, but like, literally, nobody's fucked with him during his time.
It's his amount of time he's gone without taking any kind of real dip.
Yeah.
Like the push-a-tee thing, he lost, but it was more like we all felt a little shine take off him, but his sales didn't suffer.
Streams didn't suffer.
The Kiki challenge.
And Kiki challenge shut everything down.
A month later.
I think this is the first time, I think you said it right, where he's thirsty.
Jay always said the opposite, right?
Jay always came through.
He was like, yo, change clothes.
Like, every time he thought Jay might be getting old or washed, instead of coming through and going, hey, what are you guys doing?
I'll do it with you.
Son, every rapper was talking about getting all these bitches, and Jay still talked about it.
Then what did he do, though?
I got one.
He got monogamous with one.
And he made that shit so hot.
It was such a bad bitch that you're like, oh, I guess that's.
Y'all out there putting money to your ear?
Yeah.
We don't call that money over here.
Jay's always been the contrarian.
Yeah.
I'm going to fuck with art.
Do you know what I mean?
Jay's always been the guy who did things different.
Literally, bro.
Everyone's shit on the NFL.
I'll join.
Yo!
100%.
And that has worked for him.
And I don't think Drake has ever been a person who jumped on trends.
I think he'd been someone who popularized them.
Now, some of you might look at me and be like, oh, that's not true.
Dance hall music was popping or these things.
He caught the trend early enough that he seemed like he was on the forefront of it.
Boom.
He caught it.
And you said this.
He's really good at knowing what artists could pop.
Let me work with Amigos and then make them hot, but they're keeping me hot because I'm on the forefront of this trend.
He's the best A ⁇ R in the business.
Yeah.
100%.
Without a doubt.
And it's a genius.
It's like a level of genius to it.
And that's what's kept his rank.
Because if I'm constantly being with what's hot, how the fuck am I not going to be hot?
That's it.
And constantly associated with the hottest thing.
And then people start going, you are defining what's hot.
Yeah.
You're a tastemaker.
Yeah.
And that is an interesting point about Jay and the contrarian.
But I, man, the push thing, you know what I think it is?
That was him feeling like he took a loss.
And I think he feels like he hasn't recovered.
Like, he's doing hour-long interviews.
And he's addressing it.
Push ain't saying shit.
Most of us, I'll bring it up because I hate Drake and I love Push.
But like, most people, on the day-to-day, if you bring up Drake, it's not the first thing that comes to mind.
No, he keeps making it a thing.
And I think personally, he's fucked up.
So he's like, let me get through this to get back on the map.
And real talk, he's put out songs since.
Nothing's really hit.
Like, he's put out a couple little singles, right?
He always throws out little shit.
He put out a couple songs when the Raptors won.
Yeah.
Nothing hit.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah.
So like he's put out stuff since, and it hasn't super resonated.
Not saying every song got to resonate.
Right.
But maybe he was like, all right, I need something to really stick.
Yeah.
I need something that really goes.
I mean, we felt like that before.
Like, we're putting out new clips every single week.
And every once in a while, we're like, nah, nah, we need a banger.
We need to let motherfuckers know.
And he did put out a couple songs, right?
Yeah.
I don't know if it's necessarily that.
I'm not sure.
This did also kind of happen to Jay after Nas, where like Jay kept bringing it up and Jay kept, it seemed like Jay was more bothered by it than anybody else.
Interesting.
The world will mostly forget, especially with Drake.
But the world will mostly forget about Ether if you just stop bringing it up.
Yeah.
But Jay would keep bringing it up.
Someone was saying that I think it was on the Breakfast Club, matter of fact, that like Drake is about to get the biggest bag in music history.
When he, because he no longer is under a record deal and he's releasing everything on like SoundCloud and YouTube and shit.
Yeah.
And the next deal he signs might be an exclusive deal with a streaming platform.
Oh, sure.
So Apple Music, Spotify, is that, do you read anything about that?
That sounds funny.
I saw that same interview.
Same.
Okay, so boom.
So, which is really interesting because if that's the only place you can get that new Drake.
Need to sign up for it.
Motherfuckers would go.
Now, that didn't work with Beyonce.
It did not.
Beyonce then Jay tried that with Title.
Yeah.
And people are like, nah, we'll wait.
Yeah, but Drake ain't going to try to prop up his own platform.
He's not going to create.
He's going to already go the most popular shit.
He's basically Spotify and Apple.
Music going back and forth.
And you're like, which one of y'all want me?
Yeah.
And I'm not even saying it's a knock Joe Button.
Joe Button got the bag, went to Spotify exclusively, and he's doing fine.
Yes.
Because Spotify is huge.
And Spotify is spending money right now.
The amount they could throw at Drake is fucking nuts.
It'd be crazy.
It would really qualify them.
Yeah.
So it is, he is in an interesting situation, and maybe he's feeling like, I kind of need a banger during this negotiation to let motherfuckers know.
Right?
Like, what do you do if you're in a contract year?
Yeah.
Oh, you go ham.
You pad the stats.
Yeah.
Right?
I averaged a triple-double last year.
You better fucking give me the max contract.
Right, right, right.
So maybe he's trying to go, hey, here's what I can do.
Look at the numbers.
Look at all those streams.
Wouldn't you have liked all those trends?
Look at all them TikTok plays.
Wouldn't you have liked the TikTok plays?
Yeah.
Something to it.
Corny Confidence vs Phony Bars00:04:03
Do you think this is like a deviation from Drake's authentic self?
Or do you think he was always a little disingenuous?
I've never liked Drake because he's always been a little disingenuous.
That's how I feel.
I like him for that reason, though.
No.
I like him for the sense that he like he presents himself in a public image, but I think he's like much more specific in the way he's crafting and sort of like creating his identity and like his position in the digital space.
You appreciate the architect that is Drake.
Right.
I agree with that 100%.
But I don't think this is a deviation from his authenticity.
I think he's always been a little bit phony.
Yes.
And that's to his advantage because that's why people love him.
Yes.
And when you're phony, you're willing to sacrifice your authenticity a little bit.
You can all of a sudden just speak in a Jamaican accent.
You can all of a sudden sound like you're from Houston, whatever.
You can manipulate yourself and chameleon yourself so that you can ride certain trends or create certain trends.
So it is an advantage if people don't smell out the inauthenticity.
And that's what he's so good at.
Yes.
He seems, he's Ryan Secrets.
Ryan Secrets can be excited and enthusiastic about the most boring shit you've ever seen in your entire life.
Here's Patty from Oklahoma and her mom is out here and there.
And he's smiling.
Here, the ball's about to drop.
And you're like, motherfucker, how do you seem authentic about this shit?
So this is what drives me crazy.
And I think I would assume you too, because both of us really value authenticity.
We hate fraudulence.
Yes.
When somebody's like famous, famous, and they don't seem authentic, to me, I'm like, how the fuck do people not see this?
And I think the answer is most people don't really care.
Don't be a complete phony and be a scumbag.
But if you're a little bit phony, it doesn't, and to me, it doesn't make sense.
But to most people, it's not that big of a deal.
I think that, all right, what if we use the word corny instead of phony?
Okay.
Because corny, I think people will accept.
Corny will, I will accept.
I think that if we, I think we accept corniness with greatness.
If you're whack and corny, fuck out of here.
Yeah.
But if you're nice, like Drake is nice.
Right.
And he got some little corniness to him.
Right.
But in a way, corniness is authentic.
Yeah.
Like when you see someone doing something embarrassing, you can attach yourself to that because you're like, yo, man, I felt awkward.
Yeah.
I felt embarrassed.
Like, I've done stupid shit like that.
It humanizes you thing.
100%.
And maybe he needs the he, that is to Drake's credit.
Somebody said this before.
He's the most relatable rapper.
Like, he has bars that make you.
How often do you listen to Drake bars and go, aye, nah?
Working on a weekend, like usual.
That's what we do.
We work on weekends.
Right.
That simple ass line made me go, I want him to say the line.
Even if you're a fry cook at McDonald's, you're like, yo, I'm not.
Yeah, I'm working on a weekend.
And what does he put in the video?
Working as a fry cook.
I relate to you.
I'm with you.
So even if he is slightly authentic in his shit, he makes up for it with truly penetrating, relatable lines.
And he also is so good at Jay always had to be the coolest guy in the room.
Drake never, and I don't know if Drake is so good because he's from an actor background.
Yeah.
Most rappers do it the opposite.
But Drake will do these funny ass sketches with the Toronto Raptors where he's the one acting up and he's the one being silly.
The dance video with Chris Brown, where he's like doing and getting his ass kicked in the dance battle.
Drake is always willing to be the butt of the joke.
He doesn't have to look cool all the time.
So maybe you're just like, yeah, he's corny.
That's authentic.
Yeah.
Where to me, it's like, oh, that's contrived corniness, even.
But I think he knows he's smarter than everybody.
Not everybody, but I think he knows he's smarter than all these other rappers.
So I think he feels extremely confident when around them because he's like, yeah, I'm 10 times smarter than all you guys.
Like I'll write better bars, but I'm also smarter.
So like I'll make fun of myself because I never feel insecure around you.
It's hard to like make fun of yourself when you're around people that make you feel insecure.
Look at Charles Barkley.
Look at Shaq.
Time Will Tell On Drake00:01:58
Yeah.
Charles loves it when he's made fun of.
He embraces it.
He'll roll back and forth with you.
Shaq, mommy rings you got.
Yeah.
He gets upset.
It's the most unlikable part of Charles.
It's awful.
And the most likable part of Charles.
Yeah.
And maybe, maybe it just takes an extreme confidence.
And I have actively had to work on getting better at being made fun of because if you get made fun of and you like bristle at it and fire back, you look like an asshole more often than not.
If you can laugh at yourself, it's like, all right, fair enough.
How can I hate the guy who's okay with all the shit I would say about him?
Yeah.
It shows real, it shows fucking confidence.
I'm about to shoot a log of shit through my jeans, dude.
I don't know what it is.
Maybe it's these early tapings, but they really got my bowel movements going.
All right, dude, what time are we at right now?
1:30.
Maybe we start doing some Patreon questions?
Yeah.
Let's do it.
Let's do some Patreon questions quick, and I'm going to hold in this shit.
I'm going to see if I got it.
All right, let's go.
Yo, time will tell with the Drake thing.
Let us know in the comments or tweet at us or whatever like that.
Let us know what y'all think about this because we might be off.
We might be old.
You know, we might not know.
Not might be old.
Not we old.
Well, Mark ain't old.
Yeah.
But like, we might.
You know, Mark ain't cool.
Are you being frank with me right now?
Have you ever heard a cool person say, I'm being frank ever completely?
Nah, is when you say completely frank, I was like, yo, how you be a little frank?
What got me is the pace that he said it at.
I was like, oh, he says this all the time.
Like, this is just the way he starts sentences.
I'm about to shit myself, Loki.
Yeah, all right.
Yo, what's up?
This is Akash.
That was a preview of our Patreon episode.
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