We’ve all seen the footage. On each of the 80 nights of the IT'S ALL A BLUR tour, Drake navigated through a seemingly endless throng of adoring fans on his way to the stage, engaging his fandom at micro- and macro-levels: there he is, being kissed by a beautiful woman; on the mega-screen in the arena; on your phone as you scroll Instagram or TikTok or Youtube Shorts from the comfort of your bed. In each performance of his opening stunt — in which Drake emphasizes his God-like celebrity simply by producing a juxtaposition in proximity to the masses at his concerts — the power of his presence relies on an awe ignited by impossible intimacies with his grand figure. But all the while, his trajectory is clear. The moments of Drake’s physical, spatial, and spiritual contact with his audience are simply passing delights as he makes his way to where we all know he belongs: the stage.

Fig. 1A & 1B: Fan-footage of Drake’s journeys to the stage on during his IT'S ALL A BLUR tour.

Drake’s method of theatre expands the notion of epic tragedies to its most complex juncture: the circumstances of real life in real-time, as it is experienced and consumed online. This draws the epic tale of Drake alongside the most defining and classic narratives of modern civilization: Don Quixote, The Odyssey, and Shakespearean plays — but expands the roles of authorship to involve Drake’s entire audience, from mega-fan to hater, as they digest Drake media towards the crafting of his broader narrative. This unconventional relationship, in which Drake’s figure has become so large that he has lost full control of the steering wheel, paints every observer as an equal writer of Drake’s story. We are observing, experiencing, and directing epic drama in real-time, rather than receiving a fully conceptualized or complete theater. Memes have become the medium through which Drake Theater is enacted.

ACT I:

Drake On Stage

Drake’s relationship with the stage predates Drake as we know him now. He broke into our collective cultural consciousness when he was still Aubrey Drake Graham, costumed as Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi. On the show, where Graham plays an often misunderstood, mixed-race high schooler, his character struggles as he shifts out of his adolescence and into something more sinister. Jimmy Brooks’ defining moment on the show is when he becomes a victim of gun violence in school at the hands of a spiteful classmate. The injuries he sustains transform Jimmy Brooks into Wheelchair Jimmy, who Graham continued to play for two and half seasons before leaving the show to pursue his career as a rapper. (Aubrey raps as Jimmy in an episode of the final season of Degrassi, which introduced Aubrey as a rapper to a broad audience in 2008.) The birth of Drake the Rapper was deeply complicated by the events in the life of his on-screen character, with Graham threatening to pull out of the show for fear that Brooks’ state of disability would tarnish his credibility as a burgeoning player in the hip-hop scene. The performance of one alter ego directly opposed the aspirations of the other — and Aubrey simply couldn’t accommodate them both.

Fig. 2A & 2B: Aubrey Graham in dissonant roles as Jimmy Brooks and Drake, the emerging rapper.  


While Drake and the trappings of his current persona are distant from Graham’s complicated performance as Jimmy Brooks, it’s undeniable that Drake begins and ends on the stage. At IT’S ALL A BLUR, Drake’s most recent stadium tour, his physical journey to the stage only restates his surreal stature and, ultimately, the blurriness of his theater. Now off of the TV screen, the spectacle of his performance — akin to his entrance to the stage — hinges on the participatory nature of his audience.

Drake’s catalog is self-referential: he uses his own character as an instrument for identification, allowing his audience to engage in broad topics and perspectives (e.g., feeling scorned by women and desiring success) as methods of self-making. In his physical performances, Drake balances the ubiquity of his character by leaning into the specificities of his personal history, playing iterations of himself in a musical theater spectacle where he is the protagonist in a classic Hero’s Journey tale for all to see. On stage, Aubrey Graham and Drizzy become interchangeable characters in hazy recountings of his rise to fame: a “one-man show” in which the umbrella of Drake represents a spectrum of characters and meanings and is actually taken on by multiple actors and animated beyond the limitations of shared physical reality through technology like real-time AI deepfakes, projected onto the Jumbotron in the arena.

Drake’s on-stage performance delivers his most popular music through the vehicle of the hyper-unreal — symbols that surpass reality in order to articulate the severity of his trials and tribulations. In IT'S ALL A BLUR, Drake and all additional versions of his broader character exhaust the most absurd potential of the theater, posing in massively surreal scenes. Drake raps “Look What You’ve Done” on the couch to a younger look-alike in the role of Aubrey. Drizzy navigates a world where giant sperm and inflatable big- breasted women float through the air. Suddenly, Drake mutters along to “Controlla” while suspended in a floating gazebo, donning a cowboy hat and shooting smoke out of a modified gun. In the next moment, he’s all alone in the round, wearing a Nocta bulletproof vest with a red laser trained on his heart while performing “Enemies” to an enthusiastic crowd (they’re all about that street shit!). Drake pats the head of an actor in a fetish-like German Shepard/Wolf costume while rapping to all of his hypothetical dogs in the audience, hitting the nail so on the head that every attendee may as well be his henchman, each with an OVO prefix to their name.

Fig. 2C: Drake speaks to himself on stage at his IT'S ALL A BLUR tour. Drake’s younger self is played by an actor. On the screen, Drake’s doppelgänger is modified with a live implementation of deepfake technology to map Graham’s actual face onto the canvas of the actor — in real time. Link to video.

In what space other than the theater would it be possible for a character to traverse these seemingly untethered situations so seamlessly? How is it possible for Drake to execute time travel — suspending reality to converse with a digitally modified caricature of his younger self — and physical travel — bringing both the battlefields of the 6ix and the beaches of Turks and Caicos to standardized multipurpose stadiums around the world? The answer is not magic; the answer is theater. The unreliability of Drake as a narrator expands into his dreamlike universe on stage, where reality cannot be reliable; the image on the large screen does not reflect the reality of what is being performed; Drake’s likeness is omnipresent both by design and desire. On stage, Drake goes above and beyond the expectations of a normal pop-music performance, which proposes that the concept and quality of his concert should translate seamlessly into a prevailing narrative about his artistry, his character, and the quality of his music. Drake offers something more in the chaotic range of characters he enacts with seemingly no rhyme or reason; he takes on a Dada theater, and in the chaos, the seed for an infinity of Drakes is planted.

Fig. 2F: Drake performing in a sea of blue as a proverbial sperm floats above him at the IT’S ALL A BLUR tour.

Fig. 2G: Drake enlists an actor to play his canine companion on stage at IT’S ALL A BLUR. Link to video. 

Fig. 2H: At a crescendo of his concert, Drake recruits aliens to bring his performace to another world.

ACT II:

POV Drake Steals Your Girl

Of course, Drake's performances are not limited to the physical stage. He extends the slipperiness of his characters into off-stage, Drake-authored skits, which he makes in collaboration with creators like Druski and BenDaDon. Across topics and narrative styles, the unifying trope in these skits — produced for the smallest screens (see: Instagram Reels) is that Drake always plays Drake.

Fig. 3A & 3B: Drake plays Drake in skits with BenDaDon. In his on-screen character, Drake plays a version of himself where he keeps on embarrassing a friend in front of his girl — culminating in Drake singing to the girl at a real concert of his. Link to video.

Drake is among the most meme-d rappers of the internet age — so much so that his name alone can be used in the production of verbal memes like “Drake the type of dude to say ‘oopsie daisy’ after dropping something.” Drake acts as the flexible foundation for a format in which the character traits of “normal people” are made funny by association with Drake and all the simultaneously niche and broad- ranging motifs he has come to represent.

Drake is aware of his cultural power. In his skits, he takes head on the format of “Drake the type of dude to...,” effectively closing the loop on critiques of his character/caricature. Drake making “Drake the Type of Dude” content while being Drake produces a distinctly theatrical double-bind, which at once legitimizes and pokes fun at all critical observations of his character by his audience. His explicit performances of himself in various silhouettes — as a womanizer, as a slimy friend, as a drug dealer — open the field for Drake to become anyone, and in return, for anyone to take on Drake-ness. Even Drake skits not authored or performed by Drake hold the potential to become viral, canonical elements of his wider genre and general public perception.

Fig. 3C & 3D: Stills of Drake singing to his friend’s girl for the purposes of a skit at an actual Drake concert. Link to video.

This is an omnidirectional and unsteady relationship between actor and character: all of Drake’s avatars muddy the distinctions between his real self and his performed self. This obfuscation of a clear actor– character relationship (eg: Stefani Germanotta plays Lady Gaga) launches Drake’s entire oeuvre into the zone of the unreliable, which is why when someone else pretends to be Drake for the purposes of a meme, we can suspend our disbelief for just long enough to get the joke. In other words, Drake’s code is open source. The terms of his theater allow anyone to get on stage in his costume, even if just for a moment.

Fig. 3E & 3F: Youtube Collective RDCworld1 stages their imagining of the behind-the-scenes events of the Drake-Kendrick beef of 2024. Link to video.

Just as Drake has enemies, he has observers (and impersonators). Drake’s online avatar, @Champagnepapi, breaks the boundaries of its own packaging, just as Drake’s on-stage presence surpasses the capacity of the arena. Drake fan pages act as the most democratic and on-the-ground manifestations and meeting zones of Drake lovers and haters alike.

Fig. 4A: A selection of memes from @PookieBearDrakey’s account, in which an image from Drake’s social media is repositioned to take on an expanse of meanings. Link to @PookieBearDrakey.


@PookieBearDrakey is one of those fan pages, locked in on a specific iteration and aesthetic zone of Drake’s various presentations. As the name suggests, @Pookiebeardrakey centers on compositions in which Drake occupies his cutest, zestiest persona, lovingly named Pookie Bear. (Pookie Bear Drakey is adjacent to the meme-version of Drake who would see his arch-nemesis and say “Well, well, well...” or say “ouchie” after stubbing his proverbial toe.) @Pookiebeardrakey has crafted a concise visual rhetoric and a closed universe of symbols, recycling a core set of images towards a seemingly infinite range of meme scenarios, in which Drake becomes an agent of meaning through which to discuss everyday experiences. The administrator of @Pookiebeardrakey is a high school student from Houston, and as her character has been gradually revealed in live streams and occasional story Q&As, it’s become clear how Drake-As-Pookie-Bear is a tool for her to connect with other young people online about the banal absurdity of their everyday lives.

@Pookiebeardrakey is a prolific account, publishing over 152 posts since its founding in mid-December of 2023. In that time, @Pookiebeardrakey has devised inventive methods of meaning-making through the nature of repeating and restaging the same images ad nauseam – acting as an interlocutor between absurd Drake-authored content (mostly harvested from his Instagram stories and other ephemeral offerings on his official platforms) and absurd or embarrassing everyday experiences in the life of a teenager — for example, introducing yourself on the first day of school or spending real-life money on Roblox currency.

Fig. 4B: A selection of memes from @PookieBearDrakey’s account, in which an image from Drake’s social media is reposition to take on an expanse of meanings. Link to @PookieBearDrakey.

@PookieBearDrakey once exemplified a perfect Drake stan: the administrator often posts multiple original memes a day, devoting the equivalent of a part-time job’s worth of her time to deepening the lore of Drake. However, On August 5, 2024, nothing was the same when @PookieBearDrakey changed their handle to @PookieBearKenny, becoming yet another avenue through which the Drake-Kendrick beef of 2024 was aired. To announce the shift, the newly minted @pookiebearkenny posted a picture of Kendrick Lamar, drenched in the aesthetics of Drake-As-Pookie-Bear, donning a cutesy Hello Kitty filter. The caption: simply “plot twist,” at once a coded reference to Drake’s recently revived finsta account and a declaration of the administrator’s disidentification with Drake and his associated symbolism. The reaction from her following was swift and severe: within minutes, the @PookieBearKenny debut was met with scores of hateful comments, demanding that the administrator restore the page to a lighthearted Drake- focused environment rather than take on the external politics of The Beef.

Fig. 4C: @PookieBearDrakey announced its transition to @PookieBearKenny on August 5, 2024, in the wake of the Drake-Kendrick beef of 2024. Link to @PookieBearDrakey.

Of her decision to make such a radical shift for the direction of the page, the administrator behind the account expressed on a livestream that she could no longer defend Drake’s behavior — and that it was the severity of the Drake-Kendrick beef that pushed her to make the change. Despite her justifications, she was met with immense pressure from her audience in the form of threats to report and unfollow the account. Soon after, @Pookiebearkenny was again renamed as @pookiebeardrakey, and the account was restored to its original scope of content. The Kendrick-As-Pookie-Bear posts are now merely traces of a cultural conflict that has now been overwritten by the force of Drake’s stan-dom, buried under dozens of memes featuring Drake in traditional Pookie-Bear style.

Why did the Instagram audience so readily reject @PookieBearKenny? Kendrick’s failure to function as an equally malleable and identifiable character is an element of his cultural design. His meaning as an icon and as an artist is too tethered to his real-world experiences, in which he uses autobiography and poetry as methods of pointed social and political critique. While Drake employs some overlapping symbolisms with Kendrick, Drizzy’s success hinges on his ability to be a completely liquid character, slipping in and out of ethnic and cultural performances and even linguistic styles.

Fig. 4D & 4E: Stills from an overdubbed video of Drake’s 2023 OnTheRadar freestyle poking fun at Drizzy’s habit of picking up the mannerisms of locals when on Island Time. Link to video.

Just as Drake must be a character capable of surreal embodiments on and off stage, @pookiebeardrakey plays on Drake’s intentional ubiquity, which enables him to be the perfect tool for talking about a diverse and yet distinctly non–political set of realities.

@PookieBearDrakey is a microcosm of Drake Theater, in which a range of characters and signifiers dance under a shared umbrella in a landscape of absurd and impossible scenarios. The fan account represents a stunning transmutation of Drake-isms beyond Drake’s embodiment, his physical performances, or even the universe of his authored media: @PookieBearDrakey articulates the profound vibrancy of the versions of Drake where he himself is entirely absent. Ultimately, Drake at his best is also Drake at his most abstract — when he becomes something un-articulatable, nebulous, and ultimately, deeply collaborative.

Drake Related, Everywhere.

What makes up Drake? Ultimately, Drake is a collection of personas on a constantly traveling set. In other words, Drake is theater. Drake’s universe of performances is not just taken on by Aubrey Graham: he is ChampagnePapi and Drizzy Drake; he exists on @PookieBearDrakey’s account; he looks into the crowd and sees himself there in the form of a doppelgänger. This setup — in which the function of Drake is to mean just enough to slip into any context, is enabled by the breadth of his authors. In the chaos, many opportunities for pop-cultural fabulation arise along a broad spectrum that ranges from “authentic” Drake- authored content to bizarre and impossible configurations of Drake’s form.

Fig. 5A: Clip from an Instagram Reel in which an audience member pans between Drake on stage and a doppelgänger in the audience. Link to video.

The role of the author is becoming more and more ambiguous. Influencers literally narrate their everyday actions just as Google AI Overviews obfuscate the actual authors of information on the internet. Drake’s radical form of theater — in which anyone can play their hand in the narrative of Drake — offers the rare opportunity for a truly collective authorship. Drake is written by everyone, and therefore is everyone: there’s nothing that Drake can’t relate to.

Fig 5B: Drake’s theater falters, revealing a painfully human performer beneath the armor of his aura. 

Works Cited

Drake wades through crowd during IT'S ALL A BLUR
Fan-made videos of Drake’s IT'S ALL A BLUR entrances posted on Instagram.
‘Degrassi’: Why Drake Got Kicked Off of the Show by Chelsea Stweart for Showbiz CheatSheet
Drake Is Launching an Entirely New Label with Nike by Cam Wolf for GQ
@YoungVeeTV on Youtube Shorts
@Much on TikTok
Why Drake is the most meme’d rapper of all time by Ruby Justice Thelot for Dazed Magazine @Druski on Instagram
@BenDaDon on Instagram
“How Drake Was In The Studio After Dropping and Receiving a Diss Track” by RDCworld1 @PookieBearDrakey on Instagram
@cristinososa on TikTok
@hotfreestyle on Instagram

drake falls right in front of camera by drosato2

DRAKE THEATER was originally presented at the Sixposium, organized by Ruby Justice Thelot, in October 2024. 

Theju Nimmagadda is a furniture designer and sculptor. He lives and works in Providence, RI.

Gala Prudent is an artist and strategist. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.