Drake Reunites Degrassi Class For “I’m Upset” Video, Reveals Scorpion Release Date
In the early years of the 21st century, before he became the biggest rap star in the world, Drake played Jimmy Brooks on 145 episodes of the Canadian teenage soap opera Degrassi: The Next Generation. For a very short period of time, Drake’s child-actor roots seemed like a reason not to take him seriously as a rapper. (Please bear witness, for instance, to the first thing I ever wrote about Drake.) But if anything, Degrassi gave Drake an emotional connection to a whole generation of potential fans. God knows it didn’t hold him back. And now he’s used a music video as an excuse to reunite the entire Degrassi cast.
A vast number of former Degrassi students and faculty appear in Drake’s new video for his turgid angst-airing single “I’m Upset.” Drake shares the screen with many of his old castmates, including Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith as Jay and Silent Bob, who had a guest arc on season four of Degrassi. Karena Evans, who directed Drake’s excellent videos for the massively popular “God’s Plan” and “Nice For What,” once again directs. The video features Drake waking up at the center of the court in the Air Canada Centre, and it shows a high school reunion that gets out of control. The video does not show Drake rapping from a wheelchair, but it does have multiple shots of Shane Kippel barfing, and there’s a nice little then-and-now montage at the end. In general, the video works as a valiant attempt to wash the whole Pusha-T episode from the public’s mind. Here’s the video:
And Drake also used this morning to unveil the release date for his certain-to-be-huge Scorpion album, which is now 15 days away from release. He also tweeted what may be the cover art. Here it is:
June 29, 2018 #Scorpion @Drake pic.twitter.com/gF5cDJItbo
— OVO Sound (@OVOSound) June 14, 2018
So yeah, Scorpion will arrive 6/29. No official word yet on whether Drake is hiding a child.