Below, watch the Booker-Prize-winning Rushdie read excerpts from five Drake tracks – “6 PM in New York”, “Forever”, “Know Yourself”, “What’s My Name”, and “6 God” – and offer his commentary on each.
It is very hard not to laugh while watching him recite, “You was poppin’ back when Usher wore a U-Chain/God damn, you changed.”
Reciting Drake’s “Forever” line, “Last name ever, first name greatest/Like a sprained ankle, boy, I ain’t nothing to play with”, Rushdie comments, “I like the half-rhyme. I like ‘greatest’ and ‘played with’. That’s good.”
He also complements Drake on a subtle Marilyn Monroe reference in the “What’s My Name” line “Okay, away we go/Only thing we have on is the radio”. As he explains, “She [Monroe] posed in the nude and she was asked if she had nothing on, and she said ‘I have the radio on’.”