Tiered wedding Drake.
Photo: UMG
As one of the most vital and impactful pop stars of the last 15 years, Drake has established himself as a trendsetter and a canny trend-chaser across pop, rap, and R&B: even at his most vampiric, he’s succeeded at elevating the sounds of the underground to the mainstream, and even at his most uncool, he’s proven himself as an arbiter of what’s hot to the general masses.
His track record with music videos, on the other hand, is not as sterling. Similar to Kanye West — whose album 808s and Heartbreak practically laid the blueprint for the first five years of Drake’s career — Drake has demonstrated an uncharacteristic inconsistency when it comes to the visual format. For every hit, there’s been two misses; for every “Hotline Bling” or “Nice For What,” there’s been a “Hold On, We’re Going Home” or “Find Your Heart.” And as Drake has gotten older, his tastemaking capabilities have begun to fade; he’s an artist firmly situated in his empire era now.
This goes a long way towards explaining why many of his recent videos have been essentially IG dumps, shot in-house and capturing every cent of his luxurious lifestyle. He hasn’t worked with Karena Evans—the only woman to direct any of his videos—at all in the 2020s, which is baffling considering she’s been responsible for much of his best visual efforts. (Drake’s inner circle becoming even more stolidly masculine also seems, in the light of the misogyny that streaks his recent work, as well as his strays towards Megan Thee Stallion following Tory Lanez’s trial and sentencing, and his recent conflict with Halle Berry over the use of her likeness, far from coincidental.)
By all indications, Drake is at least interested in the music video medium; why else would he pack his clips with useless, unfunny skits and overlong narrative diversions? That tension, combined with the varying quality and questionable decision-making on display in his video archive, make for an interesting field of study. What follows is a ranking of every Drake video, assembled according to the strength of the visual approach as well as the overall effectiveness in capturing that era of Drake’s career. We’re starting from the bottom (get it?) until we reach the cream of the visual crop.
One important note up top: Drake has seemingly never turned down an invitation to cameo in other artists’ videos, so for the sake of consistency (and to keep this manageable) we’ve stuck strictly to Drake-toplined singles. (That means no “Forever,” which is fine, that video sucks.) The scope of this survey means we also had to omit the infamous Sprite advertisement where Drake’s face comes apart like a robot, which is undoubtedly the most iconic Drake visual in existence.
Just hold on, we’re going home (after we finish ranking these videos).
Dir: Unknown
Barely a video, but definitely Drake’s worst: This clip for the Take Care cut is literally just four minutes of a woman dancing provocatively in front of a camera in a messy room, before Drake himself makes an appearance at the end to kiss her on the head. No wonder why there’s no director credit for this — if you were the one to put this together, would you want to admit it?
Dir: Mikael Colombu
Drake reportedly scrapped this Take Care clip after both him and Colombu agreed it didn’t come out to their liking, and you only need to watch it once to understand why. A bizarre mishmash of live footage and neon pop-art mumbo jumbo, perhaps the best thing that could be said about it is that the fact that Drake basically buried it speaks to his ability to recognize — even with a spotty visual track record such as his — when a product is simply too bad to be released with his name on it.
Dir: Ram Accoumeh/Andrew Hamilton
Unless you’re a huge Drake stan (and if you’re reading this, who knows, you might be!), you probably don’t remember this loosie of a song; even more likely is you not remembering the video, and it’s totally possible that Drake doesn’t remember making this one, either. There’s shots of him walking off a plane runway, into a club — you know what it is. This is the type of shit Drake does in his sleep, bringing a whole new meaning to the word “effortless.”
Dir: Mahfuz Sultan
An interesting curio of a music video, if you can even call it that: This clip for the sole rappity-rap track on last year’s lovely and nearly narcoleptic house music exercise Honestly, Nevermind excises 21 Savage’s verse completely despite the fact that he showed up for the shoot. His presence doesn’t go to waste though, as the video (which counts as the sole directorial credit to date from Mahfuz Sultan) was really just an announcement for Drake and 21’s Her Loss, which would end up being Drake’s second album of 2022. Always be promoting! All those screens do look kinda nice, though.
Dir: Theo Skudr
A lot of celebrities straight-up did not know how to handle lockdown during the pandemic. When I say “handle,” I mean adjusting how their image would play in what was a weird, horrifying, and emotionally complex time for the entire world, especially people who were not isolating in many thousands of square footage. And so the faux-fi clip for “Toosie Slide”—a shameless attempt at TikTok-ery that, as the decade wears on, has also quietly endured as one of his strongest solo singles of the 2020s—is one of many instances of profoundly failing to read the room, as eerie clips of empty streets give way to…Drake in gilded digs, admiring his many trophies.
The video—directed by Theo Skudra, a Toronto photographer who’s been Drake’s house shooter for more than a decade and has handled most of his visuals over the past several years—is not without pleasing visual flourishes, from winking KAWS-designed statues and an emergent halo rising from the surface of a desk to extended takes strung together by visual trickiness, plus a big ol’ fireworks display at the end. But the out-of-touch-ness of it all persists, gesturing towards Drake’s larger slide (sorry) towards the obliviousness he’s come to embody in recent years.
Dir: Anthony Mandler
Mandler — a music-vid veteran whose impressive CV spans Rihanna and Jay-Z to Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey — handled all the videos for Thank Me Later’s three singles, and “Miss Me” is inarguably his slightest work in the bunch. The “Find Your Heart” clip might be offensive (we’ll get there) but it possesses style, while the video for “Over” provides good early-iconography fodder; this one, however, comes across as on-the-cheap and on-the-fly, with cruddy visuals and a literally piped-in performance from Lil Wayne, who appears to deliver his verse in absentia through overlaid footage shot by director David Rosseau, shortly before he went to jail to serve an eight-month sentence for criminal possession of a weapon. “It wasn’t shot the way I would have shot it,” Mandler told MTV at the time about the previously shot footage, and the struggle to contextualize it certainly shows.
Dir: Anthony Mandler
Regardless of what you thought about its songs, you can’t argue that 2016’s Views wasn’t long. Like, really long. The divisive album marked the beginning of Drake’s era of infinite and exhausting largesse (which, considering Scorpion’s gargantuan track list, is far from over), and it was only fitting that both visuals from the Views era push it run time–wise. This not-really-a-music-video is actually a 21-minute short film featuring a coterie of Views songs, with an incomprehensible action-film plot helmed by Thank Me Later–era video collaborator Mandler that takes the goofy-serious excess of “Hold On, We’re Going Home” and just adds more excess. Few can mistake the ambition here, but even fewer can make it to the end without falling asleep.
Dir: Theo Skudra
A pretty and pretty phoned-in effort from Skudra, who seems to flirt with visual dynamics only when it suits him. “Sticky” may be taken from one of Drake’s more divisive albums to date, Honestly, Nevermind, but it nonetheless captures Drake firmly in his imperial phase, and Skudra’s approach to many of Drake’s videos over the last few years is capturing the accompanying excess in constant motion. Even though there’s a memorable shot here and there—peep the yellow anorak in the rain—”Sticky” makes its gaudiness look like just another day at the office, and in a quite unremarkable fashion.
Dir: Karim Huu Do
Drake: looks sad! I know, hard to believe, but it’s true. Essentially a sober-ish redo of the visuals for “Marvin’s Room,” there isn’t much to this If You’re Still Reading This clip, except a lot of cold weather and shots of Drake looking pensively out of windows. You’re better off closing your eyes and just bathing in the immersive beauty of the song, one of Drake’s best R&B cuts to date.
Dirs: Nathan James Tettey and Theo Skudra
This mildly appealing collab with Headie One is, skeletally, serviceable UK drill—and so the clip follows suit in its perfunctory nature. You’ve got guys standing around and some nice high-beam lighting, but, like many modern films and TV shows, the whole thing is too damn dark! Overall, the video lacks the visual verité appeal of Skudra’s work—which makes sense, since this one was a collab with Nathan James Tettey, who’s directed similar clips for Brit spitters like Dave, Central Cee, and Ghetts. Blue hues abound, as well as more lens flares than a J.J. Abrams joint.
Dir: Kanye West
Yup, ‘Ye helmed this clip from Drake’s first true smash off of 2009’s seminal mixtape So Far Gone, and it bears the mark of his horndog tendencies: This cheesecake clip is little more than bouncing basketballs and bouncing cleavage, Drake playing coach to a female basketball team dressed for pretty much anything other than playing basketball. Lil Wayne makes a cameo, but perhaps the most notable (and portentous) element of the “Best I Ever Had” video is the proliferation of skits breaking up the action (or lack thereof). There are two in this video, including one where Drake tells his team that they need to get better at “[taking] that D.” Blech — we get it, Kanye. We get it.
Dir: Drake/Carlos “Spiff TV” Suarez
In the fall of 2016, a truly shocking and terrible event took place in North America: Drake released a 12-minute video for a Views single with three skits. In all seriousness, perhaps the saving grace of the clip for “Child’s Play” is that it’s shorter and slightly more comprehensible than the aforementioned Please Forgive Me; also, it features Tyra Banks throwing cake in Drake’s face. Cool. Shame about the strip-club skits, though.
Dir: Theo Skudra
(Homer Simpson voice) Mmm, bioluminescence. Skurda’s no-nonsense clip for Drake’s chart-topping rage music-in-miniature Scary Hours 2 single is mainly notable for its lush and well-captured aquarium shots at Toronto attraction Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, as well as pro-looking footage of Drake traipsing around Toronto in general. (Yes, the CN Tower makes an appearance.)
Dir: Anthony Mandler
“The worst thing about crossing a line … is when you don’t know you already have …” The opening title card to this clip for the Kanye West–produced Thank Me Later single is thoroughly fake deep, and it only gets worse from there. Marking the first time Drake tried his hand at narrative storytelling-as-music video (as he would ill-advisedly do throughout his career to date), the shot-on-location “Find Your Heart” follows Drake in Kingston, Jamaica, as he chases after a woman (played by model Maliah Michel) while tangling with a gang leader (played by dancehall don Mavado) in the process. Spoiler alert: The woman ends up killing Drake in the end. Kind of funny. You know who didn’t find this video funny? Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s minister of tourism. Go off, Edmund: “We just have to say that care has to be taken by all, including our creative artists, in portraying images of our destination and people, Gun culture, while not unique to Jamaica, is not enhancing [the island’s image].”
Dir: Dave Meyers
Night-vision footage notwithstanding, this is an excessively slick clip from music video vet Dave Meyers shot on location at Nike HQ—to the point where it resembles a commercial, moreso than any prior Fuel Bands namechecking. It’s harmless goofy fun regardless, with plenty of over-the-top mugging courtesy of Drake and athletes like Kevin Durant and Marshawn Lynch; the shots of Drake shedding a tear are obvious attempts at meme-making, but the sequence of him emerging from the pool and looking straight in the camera is, intentionally or not, stronger and more potent comedy gold.
Dir: Shane Stirling
This clip from Drake’s second mixtape, 2007’s Comeback Season, is an interesting curio to revisit if only to hear the beginnings of Drake finding his voice, literally — his pitch is higher and less pronounced than the style he’d find more success with two years later, and his flow is nervously rushed. Otherwise, a serviceable and ho-hum video that ticks the boxes for late-2000s bare-bones R&B and hip-hop visuals (cars, women, more women, a nondescript purple background with a carpet to match). Worth watching for Drake’s questionable styling, including a black-and-white zig-zag hoodie that looks like it belongs in the Black Lodge.
Dir: Theo Skudra
One of a few Dark Lane Demo Tapes tracks that reflected Drake’s early-2020s grime flirtations, the visual for “War” marks the first color-lensed Drake clip from Skudra, but there’s nothing too showy here beyond some chilly footage of Drake with his woes in ski-lodge environs. It’s also a clip that reflects the crystallization of a visual approach that Drake can capably deploy without embarrassing himself the way he so often did in his earlier videos. An embodiment of the “just vibes” mentality, for better or worse.
Dir: Jake White
Aubrey and Trey’s second visual outing for this So Far Gone single is considerably slicker and higher-budget than “Replacement Girl,” but no less generic: Trey’s hook references wanting money, cars, clothes, and “the hos,” and there’s plenty of money, cars, clothes, and women featured here. But generic visuals suit Drake sometimes, especially when it means we don’t have to suffer through OVO-also-ran-starring skits — but the “Successful” clip nonetheless falls flat on its face when closing with a quote from (wait for it — WAIT FOR IT) Barack Obama. Barack Obama! Wild.
Dir: Theo Skudra
Effectively the last pre-COVID Drake video—which is important to note considering that his videos became even more hermetic in lockdown than the visuals here—this one primarily features Drake chilling in huge, gaudy houses and watching honeydew melon getting sliced up in a fancy restaurant. Skudra’s Apple TV-esque screensaver shots of city skylines are pretty, while the video at large cements Drake’s firm move into “Things that I own” territory when it comes to what he’s doing in his videos. This is lifestyle imagery plain and simple, and if it’s not explicitly what he’s selling, at the very least he’s showing it off with no trace of shame.
Dir: Karena Evans
On paper, this made perfect sense, and it should’ve happened at least five years ago. Why not bring back Drake’s Degrassi: The Next Generation co-stars for a meme-smashing reunion? This video was likely in the cards for a while, but perhaps the serendipitous timing of its arrival — right after Pusha-T dealt Drake the first demolishing blow to his persona in his entire career with the searing, secret-child-exposing “The Story of Adidon”— meant that the clip for “I’m Upset” would always be unfairly judged. By any measure, though, this video stinks of a missed opportunity: putting Drake’s former co-stars in an overtly debaucherous setting may have been fun to shoot, but it misses the wholesome fan-service appeal that the entire conceit carried to begin with. Extended skits featuring Jay and Silent Bob (whose Kevin Smith once directed several episodes of TNG) certainly don’t help. Sorry, Drake: You are still hiding a child.
Dir: Theo Skudra
This bare-bones travelogue clip for the Views trunk-rattler isn’t new territory for Drake’s videography (see also: “We’ll Be Fine”), but the look and feel of this black-and-white video is miles beyond its thematic predecessor’s amateurishness. There’s some sort of discernible style going on, and that’s largely owed to Skudra’s digital-grain aesthetic making its debut in the Drake visual universe.
Dir: Director X
It’s always a warning sign when an artist calls his latest music video a “short film,” and this Miami Vice--indebted clip for the eternally classic Nothing Was the Same single is certainly not, well, Miami Vice. As its ranking on the list shows, it’s not Drake’s worst attempt at incorporating a cinematic narrative into his music videos, but it’s relatively lifeless and uninteresting, all explosions and meaningful stares and Drake very unconvincingly shooting someone in the head. Fun fact: Ashley Moore, who plays the damsel in distress the video centers around, was also in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping — specifically, the scene where everyone but her is disgusted by Conner4Real’s loyalty-testing dog-shit-pancake recipe. Iconic.
Dir: Theo Skudra
Another straightforward Skudra clip featuring Drake and Rozay mugging in a variety of closed-off locales, along with tour footage; notable mainly for a few seconds of striking storm footage that makes you wish Skudra and Drake would team up on something truly atmospheric and elemental—think a The Tree of Life-type excursion. As for the buttoned-on micro-skit at the end… [Jerry Seinfeld voice] What’s the deal with Drake’s affinity for needlessly awkward exchanges involving service staff as comedy? Curb Your Enthusiasm’s endless influence on rap continues apace.
Dir: Lamar Taylor/Hyghly Alleyne
Drake’s since become known for hopping between regional subsets of hip-hop culture like a kid on a pogo stick, but the video for the hyphy-jacking Take Care bonus track “The Motto” takes it to another level by opening with testimonial footage from the mother of late Bay Area rapper Mac Dre. The clip is perfunctory and Bay Area–specific, which works; points docked for Tyga wearing a Dodgers jersey (seriously?), and just for Tyga in general.
Dir: Tristan C-M
The conceit is spelled out immediately: “THIS IS 72 HOURS FOR US.” As is well documented on this list, Drake’s recent run of videos has been largely marked by lifestyle pornography captured with varying levels of gloss and style, a creeping sense of largesse that teeters on tedium when it comes to how it’s documented on camera. So it’s a nice enough change of pace that Tristan C-M’s clip for “Jumbotron Shit Poppin” has a bit of energy running through it, all quick cuts and goofy mugging that makes looking rich seem a little less, well, boring. (It should be said that, like much of Drake’s last year and a half, the charm permeating this footage is easily undercut by the rank misogyny of the song’s lyrics, which ultimately defines Her Loss as well as the rapper’s increasingly chauvinistic post-lockdown rebrand. So.)
Dir: Karena Evans
It’s hard to watch Drake visiting a Miami high school and bestowing an astounding and moneyed generosity on its attendees without getting a little sentimental. The world is shit lately — who doesn’t deserve some random 1 cheer? But the video for “God’s Plan” also represents the moment in which Drake effectively turned into the rap-game Taylor Swift (don’t leave yet): pulling stunt after stunt to bolster his brand, and increasingly losing sight of the fake-realness that once made his vibe so alluring to millennials. The video still stands as a sweet gesture, as well as something Drake deserves to be commended for — and, unfortunately, I bet that’s exactly what he wanted us to feel, too.
Dir: Dave Meyers
The vibes in the first half of this Her Loss video are straight-up unpleasant: Drake and 21 rescue Precious Lee from drowning, then they leer at aboard their mega-yacht in a way that feels extremely unsettling. But there’s a switch-up of sorts that turns the tables on the entire situation, and it’s fitting given the song’s veneer of romantic affectation (which includes a line about women’s rights that replaces “Blue Tint” as the most overt, albeit ridiculously miniscule, gesture towards politics that Drake’s expressed to date). Whether this taking-back-the-power narrative reflects any level of self-awareness on Drake or 21’s end is highly questionable, but as with several of the videos occupying this ranking’s upper tier, it’s a decent (and, let me be clear, the bar is low) change of pace to see women not being totally objectified by these guys.
Dir: GAB3
Drake and 21 Savage: trash humpers? This clip for the pair’s one-off single leading up to last year’s More Life certainly possesses the VHS-quality grittiness of Harmony Korine’s weirdo cult film from 2009, and the aesthetic — however explicitly aesthetic-y it may be — does fit the otherwise-typical rap-video tropes on display here well enough. The only thing left to do after watching it is wonder if 21 Savage has ever seen Gummo. (He probably has.)
Dir: Director X
Drake’s first Director X collab since the inimitable video for “Hotline Bling” isn’t nearly as memorable as its predecessor, but there are plenty of points awarded for trying. There’s a lot being thrown at the wall here, from the very Drake-y concept of marrying 23 women at once to The Dan Band (who you might remember from their appearance in The Hangover) letting loose on a questionable cover of “Best I Ever Had.” Blink and you’ll miss the cameo from Drake’s mother Sandi Graham, but one cameo that’s impossible to miss is Tristan Thompson, who popped up in this especially non-monogamous clip in the wake of several high-profile cheating and paternity scandals involving his past relationship with Khloe Kardashian. If that seems a little slimy, perhaps the inclusion of the brides’ IG handles provides a sense of, uh, balance?
Dir: Director X
Some great and well-shot images in this video: Drake in the snow, Drake working as a pharmacy-store clerk, Drake peacocking atop a huge “Started From the Bottom”–emblazoned billboard. Frequent collaborator Director X knows how to capture these moments effectively, and in the rearview “Started From the Bottom” is a snapshot of Drake truly entering his era of empire in hip-hop, while also beginning to flirt with the pop dominance he’d later achieve. Less effective: a skit where OVO also-rans OB O’Brien and Ryan Silverstein ogle a woman at the checkout counter, setting an early precedent for what Drake & Co. consider “comedy.”
Dir: Lamar Taylor/Hyghly Alleyne
Indelible self-generated iconography from Drake here, as he sports a variety of increasingly idiosyncratic dad-fits (that sweater!) and bros down big time all over Toronto. Notable partially for the “OVOXO” graffiti featured, signifying the era in which Drake and the Weeknd were creatively simpatico; but mostly for the level of confidence exuded here. It’s the first time he actually looks like a star, without just acting like one.
Dir: Dave Meyers
As time has worn on, one thing is abundantly clear: Drake is ridiculous. And so the Dave Meyers-directed video for the oily and unctuous Certified Lover Boy strip club anthem “Way 2 Sexy” finds a measure of success in leaning into head-empty crowd-pleaser mode when it comes to Drake’s whole thing: You get pot-bellied Drake, romantic novel Drake, Rambo Drake, and so on. It’s essentially a higher-gloss take on the “Energy” video undercut by some bizarre aesthetic decisions: a strange sitcom-credits theme that runs throughout but doesn’t connect with any of the other visual gags, awful animations about getting women pregnant, a mid-video skit in which Drake hawks a fragrance(?) called “Wet”. But you also get Future in white sands doing his best 98 Degrees impersonation and Young Thug going lumberjack mode while chopping wood and rocking angel wings. When it comes to the ultra-goofy side of Drake, he’s done a lot worse.
Dir: Anthony Mandler
The lead single from 2010’s debut LP Thank Me Later possesses a chest-thumping confidence, but it’s clear in this video that Drake hasn’t yet perfected his on-screen attitude; there are a few moments where his facial expressions suggest he’s still lost in Sheila’s special sauce back in the Degrassi cafeteria. Thankfully, Mandler’s trippy visuals do most of the heavy lifting, including some pretty cool silhouette effects that make it look like Drake is on fire — think the closing minutes of Altered States. Good movie!
Dir: Fleur & Manu
Drake is everywhere: He’s Kanye in the “Bound 2” video, he’s Oprah, he’s Justin Bieber wearing his Calvins, he’s Barack goddamn Obama. Parisian auteurs Fleur & Manu are typically known for clips that are as stylish as they are surreal, and although the concept perhaps doesn’t land as well as Drake would’ve hoped (explicitly acknowledging your own ubiquitousness in the notoriously fickle realm of pop music is a dangerous move!), it’s good for a chuckle or two.
Dir: Yoann Lemoine
Mountaintops! Slo-mo! Beautiful birds! Rihanna! The clip for Take Care’s Jamie xx and Gil Scott-Heron–sampling title track is expensive-looking as all hell, to the point where it might inspire you to go shopping for some nice countertops or luxury cars afterward. (Or, if you can’t afford that, like, a LaCroix or two.) There can be beauty in meaninglessness, and by that measure the video for “Take Care” is the Venus de-fucking Milo, handled to aesthetic and antiseptic perfection by Yoann Lemoine, a.k.a. pop musician and one-time Lana Del Rey collaborator Woodkid. Also doubles as a piece of questionable importance when it comes to the ever-growing puzzle that is tracing the last seven or eight years of Drake and Rihanna’s are-they-or-aren’t-they relationship.
Dir: Lamar Taylor/Hyghly Alleyne
It’s easy to forget, in the wake of countless imitations, how startling “Marvin’s Room” was when it first came out in advance of 2011’s landmark Take Care; the sentiment was occasionally risible, but the musical aesthetic and woe-is-me lyrical preoccupation would come to define Drake’s career for years to come. The affiliated clip aptly captures the song’s louche pathetic-ness and chemical decadence, with woozy effects and a purple filter over footage of passing street lights and Drake hitting up bars. It’s simple, and simply effective.
Dir: Karena Evans
When Drake and Karena Evans work together, the results are pure magic; her visual style and approach clearly unlocks something loose and freewheeling in Drake, and the video for “In My Feelings” is their second-best collaboration. Watching this years removed from the Scorpion era, during which Drake’s whole “thing” was truly starting to show signs of wear even as he approached ultra-dominance, it’s remarkable how much fun everything is here: Dancing on the New Orleans streets, vibrant colors that practically move along with the music, cameos galore from Big Freedia and La La Anthony to Phylicia Rashad, Yung Miami wearing a “Free JT” jacket, and an overall sense of joy that’s been missing from Drake’s recent years. (Even the bookended skits—“It was all a dream” twist and all—are surprisingly not terrible by Drake’s standards.) It’s everything you’d want from a music video but never quite seem to get lately, especially from him.
Dir: Director X
This visual reenactment of Drake’s bar mitzvah gave us so much — including, and perhaps most importantly, the eternal meme of child-aged Drake vibing at his bar mitzvah. Aww. Lil Wayne wears a panda mask and smashes a floral centerpiece with a skateboard, tequila is chugged, and everyone in general acts horny and corny — and, hey, since when is Drake not horny and corny? When it comes to the Take Care era, this is Peak Drake personified.
Dir: Drake/Director X
Quite possibly the finest Drake song, ever. The video? It comes close to the top, too. Drake and X shot the video in Memphis, bringing in southern rap icons ranging from the Hot Boys’ Turk and Project Pat to Juicy J and MJG to make appearances — as well as Dennis Graham, Drake’s father whose own past and public narrative have both perhaps embodied the definition of “it’s complicated.” But he can count this as a win, and so can Drake; the song is cockiness at its most abrasive, and the video certainly follows suit. Arguably the most effective application of Drake’s swagger, something he hasn’t really exuded in such fashion in music-video form since. Remember?!?
Dir: Karena Evans
Yes, it’s an obvious bit of pandering from Drake’s brand, just like the song itself — but, honestly, it works fantastically anyway. Evans’s beautifully lit and edited clip is a visually overwhelming coterie of female celebrities doing their thing. You could sell someone on watching it just by shouting out the names of the people that appear in it: Tracee Ellis Ross! Issa Rae! Syd! Bria Vinaite! Emma Roberts! (What, you’re incapable of getting hyped about Emma Roberts?) Most importantly, Evans gives us the hilariously amazing shot of Michelle Rodriguez in lotus pose, floating off the ground like the goddamn queen she is. True story: I saw a guy watching that scene in a coffee shop when I was settling down to work one day, and it gave me enough energy to write, like, 10,000 words that day. Michelle Rodriguez literally floating on the haters will do that to you.
Dir: Director X
Instantly iconic and meme-able to the point where the memes never really stopped flowing, Drake’s X-helmed classic clip for “Hotline Bling” did much more than teach hypebeasts to put some respect on James Turrell’s name. At once silly, serious, pretty, and astoundingly vainglorious, “Hotline Bling” is all soft hues and shameless mugging — is there any other way to define Drake when he’s truly on one? — and its staying power has been such that it’s the only pop-cultural artifact from the last five years that not even Donald fucking Trump could ruin. In a sense, it could prove to be Drake’s cultural albatross — he loves to be loved, and it’s so rare that a pop star even of his size makes something so instantly indelible as the video for “Hotline Bling.” He’ll likely spend the rest of his life trying to recreate its virality, and even if he fails, we’ll always have this video.
