Drake Parodies Bieber, Kanye, Miley, LeBron & More In ‘Energy’ Video
Drake just jumped the weekend off early with “Energy” — the music video, and first visual from his stealth-dropped If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late mixtape.
The Toronto rapper premiered the unusual Fleur & Manu-directed video on BBC 1 Beats radio on Friday, and it’s an absolute corker.
In the video, Drake impersonates Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, LeBron James, President Barack Obama, Tom Cruise, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Mayor Tom Ford and more. The clip is streaming on Apple Music.
Way way way up. @Drake. #EnergyVideoOnConnect http://t.co/8oDjPwcMeo https://t.co/fgg2bQfrYw
— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) July 10, 2015
“I got enemies, got a lot of enemies, got a people trying to drain me of my energy,” Drake sings before an onslaught of music, film, political, basketball, and names from pop culture parade across the screen.
Drake takes on Justin Bieber, as he is seen in the iconic underwear prayer pose from the Biebs’ Calvin Klein campaign. The result? You tell us if Drake managed to pull off a decent Justin Bieber.
Drake does Cyrus in her striptease, torch singer moment from her “Wrecking Ball” video.
Tom Cruise’s infamous sofa-jumping turn with Oprah Winfrey also gets a look-in.
Kanye gets the Drake treatment too, in a lift from West’s “Bound 2” music video.
In addition to these gems, the LeBron King James and POTUS scenes add almost historic pathos. There’s even a glimpse of O.J. Simpson’s infamous chase with the LAPD in that white Ford Bronco.
Although Drake rolled out If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late five months ago, the MC’s touring schedule hampered the release of videos — until now. Looking at write-ups online, the “Energy” video is getting serious love from music critics and wider.
During his interview with Zane Lowe on Friday’s Beats 1 show, the acclaimed rapper told the Brit host he will be hosting his own show on Beats 1 Radio. The first of these will air on July 11 at 6 p.m. Eastern [which is July 12 central time.]
Drake revealed to Lowe that he was inspired to do the impression-packed “Energy” video based on Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” video. “I was like, ‘Man, you know, effects have come such a long way. I bet we could do something crazy with this,'” he told Lowe.
Drake went on, “And how many people in the world feel like they have enemies? Everywhere you go, there’s always someone who wants to pull you down and even celebrity friends of mine or people that I don’t know. I want people to rewind it a bunch of times and go and tell someone else to watch it. It’s shocking, it’s beautiful, it’s a lot of things.”
The wordsmith also talked about the status of his in-progress Views From the 6 album. “We’re working, I never like to say close or far. I’ll just say we’re working,” Drake teased.
He added, “Working with [Noah ’40’ Shebib] is the best possible thing that I can do for any project.”
[Images via Drake ‘Energy’ video]
