Drake’s new video for his latest single “Started From The Bottom” is fascinating cultural document. The “story” follows a fictional version of Drake’s ascendency to superstardom, starting from his childhood (we’re meant to believe that kid is a young Aubrey, right?) days playing indoor soccer in a Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation-branded domed pitch, to his stint as Night Manager at Shopper’s Drug Mart or some reasonable facsimile thereof, to his harrowing experience preaching to the city from his Gardiner-adjacent billboard pulpit, to a beautiful beach house in some non-specific (but definitely non-Toronto) exotic locale. Throw in some gratuitous Toronto skyline shots and a few well placed Blue Jays logos and Drizzy has delivered TO’s own version of “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”
But this isn’t just your typical künstlerroman. The song is abruptly interrupted with a “humourous” scene set in the Shopper’s Drug Mart where Drake’s sidekicks aggressively hit on a beautiful and well-endowed woman who only wanted to purchase her Life brand body wash. This is arguably the most compelling, yet least entertaining part of the video – until the climax when Drake literally claps two gold bars together to the beat of the song as if they were wood blocks from Orff class. This represents success.
The easy criticism of Drake’s latest offering is that, obviously, his mom’s house in Forest Hill, of which we catch a glimpse in the video, is not what most would describe as “the bottom.” Even Drake’s upbringing in Canada, what with our well-funded social programs and effective safety net, means he had an advantage over others who toiled in housing projects amidst drugs and violence before climbing their way to the top. Despite the title of the song, Drake’s is not the “traditional” rap success story. However, I’d argue that in the cred-centric world of hip hop, for Drake to have overcome the handicap that was his role as wheelchair-bound Jimmy on Degrassi: The Next Generation to become the biggest star in the game is no insignificant achievement. Thank you Drake, for showing us what the clothes-to-more-expensive-clothes Canadian dream looks like in 2013.
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Michael Kolberg is The Sprawl Editor at Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter for jokes @mikeykolberg.
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