It’s good to be Drake. He’s apparently dating Rihanna, which is most of the reason it’s good to be Drake, but he’s also got lots of money and other stuff that probably makes him happy too, contrary to what is accepted among us plebeians.
Drake’s also on tour, and he stopped in Houston over Labor Day weekend. Apparently, Drake has an annual “Houston Appreciation Weekend,” and he held an event in the city and used it as an opportunity to announce that he was opening a nightclub there, called The Ballet. Said Drizzy, to a room full of people he probably didn’t know: “There’s a culture out there of dancing and it’s not about no strip club shit. It’s about these amazing women that we’ve got in one spot, the music that we’ve got, and the Houston culture that we got. I just wanna let you know that I’m going to bring it to you in the most honest and genuine way possible.”
Drake explaining what The Ballet is. #Houston pic.twitter.com/7IycEi2OEK
— Word On Road (@WordOnRd) September 6, 2016
Drake, who “is famously a huge fan of Houston’s strip clubs,” writes Stereogum, was also seen playing with stacks of bills while scantily-clad women danced and hung from silks, and the Juvenile classic “Back That Ass Up” played in the background. (This feels like a far cry from Drake’s announcement of his Toronto club, which was dedicated to his bubbe and zayde last year.) So, I guess Drake is opening a strip club in Houston?
But what really sticks out about Drake’s trip to Houston is the Instagram he posted yesterday that shows the rapper wearing a Houston Rockets t-shirt, with the team name written in Hebrew. (And really, what’s an Instagram if it isn’t a picture of oneself?) And even though I drink haterade on a daily basis, I have nothing ill to say about someone who wears their Jewish pride so publicly and cornily. Drake is now just one of the guys, one of the masses of young Jewish men who have bought and worn a t-shirt with Hebrew lettering, someone with whom you went on Birthright.
A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Sep 5, 2016 at 7:25pm PDT
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Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.