In the wake of his one-sided battle with Pusha-T, and (calculated) silence, Drake returns levelheaded and unfazed in his brand new music video for “I’m Upset.” Swapping out a month of bad headlines for rest and relaxation, the Toronto star is found waking up from his center court nap inside Toronto Raptors’ Air Canada Centre before throwing a real life, eleven-year cast reunion for Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Returning without his wheelchair, Jimm…, er, Drake returns to Degrassi Community School with his co-stars for a night of celebration, wild shenanigans, and, of course, a trip down memory lane. Speaking of memory lane, the video harks back to a classic line left by the rapper some time ago — five years ago to be exact.
Before living out his high school reunion in 2018, back in 2013, Drake laid out his vision for what such an event would look like. He did so on Nothing Was the Same‘s eventful closer “Pound Cake.” Other than featuring not one, but two JAY-Z guest verses (his most on an album since Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) and Drizzy proclaiming his “big homey” ascension (“I’m the big homey, they still be tryna lil bro me, dawg”), the rapper admitted his high school reunion would be less celebration and more stunt 101, rapping, “Thinking back on how they treated me, my high school reunion might be worth an appearance / Make everybody have to go through security clearance.”
Of course, by now we know Drizzy dropped out of high school back in 2002 when he took a starring role on Degrassi: The Next Generation and he would later earn his diploma in 2012. While his co-stars aren’t the target, his former (and actual) high school class sure got a sign of what to expect — should he still be considering the thought, that is. All that said, between the “Pound Cake” line and “I’m Upset” visual, Drake seemingly delivers a telling testimony to his former classmates and reasserts his position in rap as, like he mentions on the former song, “big homey.” Two birds, one stone. Check, and mate.
Dualities aside, though, Drake’s latest music video arrives as his fifth official studio album (not to be confused with the mixtape/playlist release of More Life), Scorpion, arrives on June 29.