Our Boy Drake Went on a Great Big British Night Out Last Night

Photo by Ashley Verse

Say what you like about Drake, but every time he comes to the UK he really immerses himself in British culture, and really goes for it (more than most British people, to be honest). Recall, if you will, his adorable trip to London last summer, when he spent a good week with his jumper draped neatly over his shoulders like an Oxbridge graduate, taking selfies with Johnny Mack at Wimbledon, and captioning his Instagram posts with grime lyrics. Last night was kind of like that, only instead of the kind of stuff David Cameron’s mum would deem as decent entertainment, Drake had a taste of what is arguably our greatest and truest cultural definer: the Great British Night Out.

It all began when Rihanna flew him over in her hand luggage to perform “Work” live at the Brit Awards. That was all that was supposed to happen. From there, though, Drake literally sprinted away from the O2, dove into a taxi and headed straight to a Section Boyz show in Shoreditch, where he joined them onstage with Skepta to perform “Jumpman” and “Trapping Ain’t Dead”. Shortly after, he revealed on Instagram that he’d signed with BBK.

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What a night eh? You just can imagine Drake waking up in his hotel room this morning, confused. He turns his phone on to see a Twitter timeline just jam-packed with photos of him grinding with his ex (Rihanna). He peels off a BBK contract signed in Hennessy stuck to his face, and thinks, as we all do the morning after: Oh no. What did I do?

He checks his emails and sees an Uber receipt from the O2 to The Village Underground at 9pm. Oh boy… He opens Instagram and is met with 300,000 notifications on a picture where he bigs up “my section gunners” and confirms he is the first Canadian artist to be signed to BBK, finished with Union Jack emoji. He’s really done it now. He has said and done things that quite possibly make no legal sense at all, but it doesn’t matter. It’s already been signed, sealed and delivered directly to public knowledge. We've all been there. Drake has had the Great British Night Out. He is now one of us.

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