Vietbrah

5y

In May 2015, Hannibal and I were heading to Houston from Los Angeles to attend a private dinner that Drake was hosting for our close personal friend Bun B (the legendary rapper, one half of duo UGK). As we were catching up, I sent that iconic Instagram post to Hannibal over text and he immediately suspected Xans. I’m admittedly a bit of a novice in the world of recreational d**** and respectfully deferred to Hannibal’s hypothesis. As we rode to the dinner, we made a pact that if we only had time to ask Drake one question, we were going to ask him about the “16 hours…” post. This moment was going to be for science; for all mankind; for our own personal entertainment!

Drake had Hannibal staying “at the St. Regis up on Briar Oaks” and I was “at the Derek up on Westheimer,” so I made my way to the St. Regis. Soon thereafter, Hannibal and I hopped in a luxury Lincoln Town Car to head to the dinner. We did not get to ride in Drake’s white Rolls Royce Phantom, although we did get to look at it later.

But why were we in that luxury sedan? I mean, someone from OVO had sent it for us, but why were we there? Without getting too existential, we were there for two reasons. First, someone in Drake’s camp had found my UGK documentaries and wanted to play clips from them at the dinner (this was going to be a big tribute to Bun, after all). Second, someone—maybe the same person—in Drake’s camp had been told that I was friends with Hannibal and asked if we’d be able to convince him to do a surprise roast of Bun at the dinner. This was shortly after Hannibal had done the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber, and I guess someone in OVO had been watching that too, so I called Hannibal and he said he was down.

Vietbrah

5y

In May 2015, Hannibal and I were heading to Houston from Los Angeles to attend a private dinner that Drake was hosting for our close personal friend Bun B (the legendary rapper, one half of duo UGK). As we were catching up, I sent that iconic Instagram post to Hannibal over text and he immediately suspected Xans. I’m admittedly a bit of a novice in the world of recreational d**** and respectfully deferred to Hannibal’s hypothesis. As we rode to the dinner, we made a pact that if we only had time to ask Drake one question, we were going to ask him about the “16 hours…” post. This moment was going to be for science; for all mankind; for our own personal entertainment!

Drake had Hannibal staying “at the St. Regis up on Briar Oaks” and I was “at the Derek up on Westheimer,” so I made my way to the St. Regis. Soon thereafter, Hannibal and I hopped in a luxury Lincoln Town Car to head to the dinner. We did not get to ride in Drake’s white Rolls Royce Phantom, although we did get to look at it later.

But why were we in that luxury sedan? I mean, someone from OVO had sent it for us, but why were we there? Without getting too existential, we were there for two reasons. First, someone in Drake’s camp had found my UGK documentaries and wanted to play clips from them at the dinner (this was going to be a big tribute to Bun, after all). Second, someone—maybe the same person—in Drake’s camp had been told that I was friends with Hannibal and asked if we’d be able to convince him to do a surprise roast of Bun at the dinner. This was shortly after Hannibal had done the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber, and I guess someone in OVO had been watching that too, so I called Hannibal and he said he was down.

Vietbrah

5y

So there we were in that luxury sedan on our way to dinner. As Hannibal mentions in our conversation on The Nostalgia Mixtape, “We were super early,” so when we arrived at this spruced-up warehouse space, the only people there were us, the catering staff, Drake, and one of his managers. The version of Drake we met was Sir Graham, looking like Bruce Wayne: arms folded behind his back, pacing the building, sampling the hors d’oeuvres, and making sure the feng shui was just right.

The first thing Drake did when we arrived—apologizing for asking us to be there so last-minute—immediately gave away how Canadian he is. We assured him that it was really no problem at all and quickly realized that not only were we going to get to ask Drake our one burning question, we were also going to be forced to carry on an entire conversation with him until people started showing up.

Later, we got to nerd out on music with Sir Graham and even put him onto a band he’d never heard of called Hiatus Kaiyote, whom he’d later sample on “Free Smoke” without crediting us (hear this full story on Hannibal’s episode of my podcast). But first we opened up our conversation by getting right to the most pressing matter: that insane Instagram post.

“We gotta ask you about something, man,” I said to Drake. I could see Hannibal in my peripherals looking nervous. If I did something embarrassing, this would definitely be a good chance for him to be like, “You know, I don’t even know Sama’an like that.”

“What’s that?” Drake replied with a big Canadian smile.

I had saved a screenshot of the Instagram post in case there was no cell signal at the dinner (this was important), so I unlocked my phone, and there it was. I flashed it to Drake.

He immediately tilted his head back and let out a huge laugh.

“Oh, man,” Drake said. And then he told us the story.

Originally, I had planned to save this for my future memoir, but the release of this podcast is a momentous occasion. I really don’t have a choice. Also, I don’t remember the exact verbiage of our conversation, so I’m paraphrasing here:

Drake was flying from Los Angeles to Europe (my memory is telling me it was the U.K., but I can’t confirm. Drake, please chime in here). He says he remembers being at his house, and, perhaps due to flight anxiety, he popped something. Before he knew it, he was on the plane and felt compelled to take a selfie. The next thing he remembers is waking up after the plane had landed and his management team being furious with him for posting such an insane caption. He says they were threatening to revoke access to his own social media. I think it’s not a coincidence that his presence on Twitter, at least, seems to have dropped off since around that time.

https://www.complex.com/music/2019/03/drake-half-a-xan-line-origins-theory

Frankie

5y

surprised to know he has a managment team. but wow thats crazy, never heard about it

Vietbrah

5y

management team aka Future & Oli

Fitz

5y

Up is my one direction like I'm Harry Styles ☝🏼

(thought for sure this would be a line off VIEWS)

Vietbrah

5y

thought this was gonna be on a verse as well

Vietbrah

5y

thought this was gonna be on a verse as well