In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies in pop culture… and all that it affects.
While celebrities have not exactly revealed themselves to be the most in touch with how a rich person should “be” during this blacklight on class divide times, some have reacted more tone deafly than others. Drake is just the latest to show his blindness to how other people live. What’s worse, as a rapper, his background isn’t as “hard” as it might be stereotyped and played up to be, considering he lived in the well-to-do Forest Hill neighborhood of Toronto, of which he would remark in a “the lady doth protest too much” fashion, “[We had] a half of a house we could live in. The other people had the top half, we had the bottom half. I lived in the basement, my mom lived on the first floor. It was not big, it was not luxurious. It was what we could afford.”
Apparently Drake wanted to make amends for that sense of domiciliary lack by decorating his mansion as gaudily and tastelessly as possible. Bearing the mark of the saying, “Just because you have money doesn’t mean you have taste.” Even when you’re paying someone else to have it for you. In this case, it was Ferrus Rafuli, the interior designer with the gall to deem the style and structure as “a contemporary spin” on “Beaux Arts” and “Art Deco” (one should have called Lana Del Rey for that, who at least has a song called the same and the credit of writing “Young and Beautiful” for The Great Gatsby Soundtrack–fittingly, many have quipped that this is Drake’s version of Jay Gatsby’s house, and Rihanna the Daisy who will never be impressed). But how else can one try to sell their tacky work without a bit of delusion? Just as the editors at Architectural Digest were slightly delusional in choosing to release this spread during months when the peons with a more normal shack setup of an abode would be feeling particularly prone to eating the rich. Not just for their shitty taste in decor, but for the sheer waste of money on extravagances like an NBA regulation-size basketball court. And all for Drake to fuel yet another illusion about himself: that he could be a true player.
His bedroom, clichely, is cited as his favorite of all the rooms in the house. And it ought to be at 3,200 square feet, the size of most “middle class” people’s homes. Yet here Drake has an entire house within one room, one of the most glaring examples of his excess for the sake of excess approach to showing off his wealth. At literally the most inappropriate time in twenty-first century history to do so. Drake defended and touted the ostentation in the article with the line, “It’s overwhelming high luxury. That message is delivered through the size of the rooms and the materials and details of the floors and the ceilings. I wanted to make sure people can see the work I’ve put in over the years reflected from every vantage point.” Work, huh? Is he “working” at the grocery store or the hospital? And as someone who claims to know “the struggle” from their early days, wouldn’t he understand that it’s crass to parade wealth like this? That the interior design itself is so grotesque–a manifestation of someone who seems to be parodying affluence–makes one think that, no, Drake never really had it that rough in the first place. Even Michael Jackson (the man whose voice Drake pillaged for “Don’t Matter To Me” from 2018’s Scorpion) kept a tight lid on Neverland… though, of course, that might have largely been to contain the fire around the smoky rumors of his pedophilia (hence the Drake lyric, “Michael Jackson shit, but the palace is not for kids”). Because yes, both men have shown decidedly nouveau riche tendencies–the most offensive of all strains when it comes to “having money.”
Billed as “The Embassy” by Drake (if The Embassy Suites wasn’t going bankrupt like every other hotel right now, maybe they’d have the wherewithal to sue) and an “eye-popping pleasure dome” by Architectural Digest, the ludicrous display extends right down to the predictable KAWS sculptures that flank either side of the entryway. Like a bad version of Cribs because it takes itself seriously (with AD even name-checking this staple of early 00s MTV), Drake’s mansion is cheesy to the max with seemingly no irony. What’s more, the thing about Cribs was: it aired at a time when any remaining buttresses left for American capitalism weren’t crumbling at a rate that even one of the U.S.’ many millionaires couldn’t afford the upkeep to repair. No one wants to see this grandstanding. It doesn’t make them feel “good” or like this is something they, too, can one day strive for (the way, perhaps, Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous did in its 1980s heyday when capitalist propaganda was still highly effective). It is merely an impossible goal made increasingly impossible as the economy deteriorates amid a no end in sight situation. But Drake is Canadian…surely that should make him less oblivious to his classist affront, right? Or is it the opposite?
In any case, trying to adequately frame his “attention to detail” (a.k.a. spending a shit ton of money), Drake stated it was all a means to honor his hometown, insisting, “Because I was building it in [Toronto], I wanted the structure to stand firm for a hundred years. I wanted it to have a monumental scale and feel. It will be one of the things I leave behind, so it had to be timeless and strong.” Narcissistic much? Isn’t having an “illegitimate” child enough of a legacy anyway? To that end, one of the latest songs, “When To Say When,” from Drake slated to appear on his sixth album refers caustically to his “baby mama,” Sophie Brussaux (formerly Rosee Divine when she was a porn star), as a “fluke.” Because, yes, Drake is the ultimate Petty Betty when it comes to being jilted (well, apart from Justin Timberlake). And the ultimate when it comes to being a hypocrite (like appearing in front of the Marcy Projects in the video for his aforementioned single when the only rapper who has any business doing so is Jay-Z).
What’s more, for all his posturing at bravura and having had it rough, Drake still reverts to the antiquated mode of thinking: “Look, we can argue back and forth, but who’s the richer man?/Isn’t that what matters in this world that we livin’ in?” Evidently so. Even in this climate when fanning the flames of the average joe’s contempt is an extremely bad idea. How the fuck you gonna get your assistant to buy groceries if you keep parading your vulgar sense of wealth? And, on a side note, how do you expect to make adequate music when the lounge to your studio is replete with childish action figure decor? In truth, it’s as though this house was tailor-made for Macaulay Culkin in his combined roles of Kevin McCallister and Richie Rich. Except neither of these man-child types would have the gall to put up a piece of artwork that reads: “Let the state disintegrate.” In some respects, Drake is doing the exact opposite to facilitate that by continuing to adhere to this bourgeois pig mentality of his. In others, maybe he’s bringing on that disintegration by spurring the masses to show up to his house with tar and feathers once quarantine is over (or rather, if it’s ever over. One supposes that’s how the rich would stay safe–by forcing the normals to remain locked in their non-castles, more commonly known as dungeons).
