On Thursday (Aug. 11), Drake shocked fans after revealing his first face tattoo. He shared a close-up image on Instagram of the new ink, which reads “sg” in honor of his mother, Sandra “Sandi” Gayle. The Instagram Carousel post also featured images of a Blackberry phone, cars, drinks, and vintage artwork. The caption read, “Sandra Gayle” with a pink heart.
Drake is open about his deep love for his mother. Last Mother’s Day, he shared a heartwarming video slideshow featuring photos from his childhood with his loving mother. Gayle voiced the video and reflected on being a mom. She said, “The role of a mother never comes to an end, never.” That tattoo artist, identified as Nal on Instagram, shared when the Toronto rapper came in to get his new ink. He coolly captioned the video, “The boi,” tagging Drake in the post.
Tribute tattoos to his parents seem to be the theme of the week for the Certified Lover Boy rapper. Drake poked fun at the portrait tattoo his father, Dennis Graham, got dedicated to his superstar son. The rapper wrote, “I was just sitting here thinking why you do me like this we family,” with laughing emojis. Graham joined in on the fun and commented, “Hahaha I had 16 people to try and straighten this out, they’re hurting me.” A tattoo artist named Money Mike completed Graham’s portrait at his 2017 birthday party.
But he wasn’t pleased when Graham broke the unspoken tattoo rule and had another artist touch it up. Mike explained to TMZ why the tattoo wasn’t the “absolute greatest.” He said, “So in my defense, one of the reasons the tattoo isn’t the absolute greatest I’ve ever been able to do is because he was rushing me. So four hours into the tattoo he was in severe pain, and he was telling me basically just to wrap it up. So that was like when I got to the hair. Once we were on the hair I was being majorly rushed, and he loved the tattoo. When I was done with it he was stoked, his family was stoked, his girlfriend liked it. Drake’s sister liked it, everybody was happy with it.”