Breaking Down Drake's Longstanding Affinity with Country Music

While the past 12 months or so have seen a dizzying plethora of mainstream chart-toppers venture into Nashville, from Beyoncé to Post Malone to Lana Del Rey, there's one artist we're still hoping will soon be making a move towards the genre: Drake.

With one of his good friends - and rumoured collaborators - Morgan Wallen heading to Drake's stomping ground of Toronto, Canada this week and a brand new album-teasing ICEMAN episode dropping tomorrow (Thursday, September 4th), a country crossover continues to look increasingly feasible. As a result, we figured it was the perfect time to look back at the self-proclaimed 6 God's longstanding relationship with the genre. Although he's yet to drop a full country song, he's been name-checking, co-signing and cameoing throughout his storied career.

In recent years, Drake's relationship with country has primarily been visible through his friendship with Morgan Wallen, with the latter making a high-profile appearance in Drake's explosive ‘You Broke My Heart’ music video towards the end of 2023. This followed the Canadian rapper's comments during a live stream, where he gave Wallen a shout-out and starting playing ‘Last Night’ over the speakers.

This summer, the titanic duo stepped out as part of Wallen's pre-show walkout in Houston, Texas, with Drake's surprise appearance again sparking rumours of a collaboration. Given the fact that the Sneedville megastar has been teasing an extended version of his I'm the Problem ‘Interlude’, we think Drake would be the perfect guest, with this track exploring a brooding, early-hours and neo-R&B ambience.

Soon after, Wallen took to the comments on one of Drake's easter-egg-laden Instagram carousels, which featured a photo of an unreleased merchandise t-shirt with ‘I Miss You a Little Bit More Tonight’ emblazoned across it. Wallen responded by gushing, “Jersey is hardbody”, potentially hinting that this is a lyric from a new duet.

Drake is still in Europe with PARTYNEXTDOOR for their popular summer tour, and will therefore not be in Toronto for Wallen's double-header at the Rogers Centre this week. Nonetheless, if they do have a collaboration up their sleeves, it's hard to think of a better place to debut it, perhaps as a new soundtrack for the walkout.

But don't mistake Drake's alliance with Morgan Wallen for the bandwagon-jumping that many of his contemporaries have been accused of, courtesy of country's surge in popularity. The ’Headlines’ hitmaker has had ties to the genre for over a decade.

On ‘HYFR’, for instance, taken from Drake's seminal 2011 record, Take Care, the global phenom playfully tips his cap to one of country music's most iconic anthems when he raps, “All my exes live in Texas like I’m George Strait”. A few years later, he interpolated Strait's ‘Here for a Good Time’ hook on Big Sean's ‘Blessings’, during which Drake croons, “I'm here for a good time, not a long time, you know I...”

On his latest solo album, For All The Dogs, Drake gives one of country music's most revered figures and one of his fellow Canadians a witty, playful name-check when he raps on ‘8am in Charlotte’, “Shania Twain notepad / I'm makin' it line-dance”.

These minor references might seem flippant and trivial, but as any long-time Drake fan knows, each lyric and name-check is carefully curated. So the fact that he's choosing to pay homage to country legends like George Strait and Shania Twain feels intentional, as does his consistent nods to country culture across social media.

There was the cowboy-themed 35th birthday party, the enigmatic horse posts (which fans are convinced are song hints) and the country-inspired fashion, from the camo caps and double-denim to dazzling Western buckles and stark red cowboy boots.

Over the course of his career, Drake has faced persistent criticism for being a “culture vulture”, a label he addresses in his newly aired Not This Again interview with Bobbi Althoff. He has always made an effort to incorporate a variegated, eclectic mix of atypical styles into his sound, such as Jamaican dancehall on the likes of ‘Controlla’ and ‘Passionfruit’ and UK grime on ‘KMT’ and ‘Who Told You’.

Because of this, some view his flirtation with country music through a skeptical lens - but this cynicism is misplaced. Drake has always been vocal about his Toronto roots on his mother's side, which informs much of the lore surrounding his discography and various nicknames (The 6 God, for example, is a nod to the original Toronto area code of 416). However, Drake's father hails from Memphis, Tennessee.

Drake often depicts spending time with his father in country terms, even rapping about having a “Hundred cousins out in Memphis / They so country, wow” on ‘Jumpman’.

In a recent interview with ABC24 Memphis, Drake's father, Dennis Graham, speaks about how his son holds Memphis close to his heart, “He tells people, ‘I’m from Memphis’. You know, he’ll tell you in a second. ‘I’m from Memphis. That’s my home’”.

But there's more - Dennis Graham was also a respected musician, who ended up playing drums for none other than country and rock n’ roll trailblazer, Jerry Lee Lewis. Although the ‘One Dance’ singer-songwriter has pioneered a predominantly R&B and rap sound across his expansive catalogue, country has always been there.

So as Drake gets ready to drop another preview of his new album, ICEMAN, and Morgan Wallen gears up for his Toronto shows, if there is any country-adjacent material en route from the Certified Lover Boy in the near future, it will inevitably draw flak from the stubborn, traditional-leaning pockets of the genre. But in reality, this relationship between Drizzy and the country music world has been years in the making - and if anything, we think a country collaboration is long overdue.

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