Drake has certainly had a difficult couple of months, with the most notable moment being when fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar used his Super Bowl halftime show as an opportunity to call the Canadian a paedophile – something Drake’s lawyers are now suing Lamar’s record label over.
Social media would have you believe that Drake came off worse from the pair’s constant sparring, that he was no longer culturally relevant and had been deserted by his friends in the music industry.
So what better way to dispel those views than by headlining three nights of London’s biggest festival – performing to more than 150,000 people in the process?
The Toronto rapper has just finished night two at Wireless, which featured so many special guests that there was barely a moment to breathe throughout the set, let alone sneak off for a drink or toilet break.
Each night of the festival has centred around a different era of the 38-year-old’s extensive back catalogue, with Friday delving into his R&B roots, Saturday dedicated to UK rap and grime and Sunday set to explore his forays into global genres such as dancehall, reggaeton and Latin pop.
The two hour sets left plenty of room for collaborators – with Lauryn Hill, Bryson Tiller, Central Cee and Dave getting the biggest cheers of the weekend.
Both nights have also proved that if Drake needs a new place to call home, London would welcome him with open arms.
The festival reached sweltering levels of heat on both days, but nothing could kill the spirit of the thousands of fans, whose energy rippled through the crowd.
“There’s no place like home – London, England.
“You’ve shown me so much love over the years,” he added – amassing huge cheers from the crowd.
Friday love songs
Drake’s Friday performance marked the first time the Canadian had played properly to UK crowds in more than six years – so fans appeared a little deflated when he wasn’t the first face they saw as the lights went down.
Instead, co-headliner PARTYNEXTDOOR started off the show, performing a medley of solo hits for around 20 minutes.
Drake then entered the stage to little fanfare, but all was forgotten quickly as he launched into some of his biggest R&B hits, including Marvin’s Room, Teenage Fever and the everlastingly catchy Passionfruit.
Then barely minutes into his headline slot, the Canadian was once again on the sidelines as he introduced his first and second of many special guests.
It became evident early on that Drake knows a thing or two about creating a viral moment, first when he brought out Bobby V to perform his hit Slow Down and then Mario, who provided flawless vocals on his signature track Let Me Love You.
A theme of the weekend was established early on – that Drake felt comfortable enough as a performer to allow others to take centre stage and lift up those whose talents he appreciated.
He went on to collaborate with several more artists on the night, including R&B newcomer Giveon, Kentucky singer and rapper Bryson Tiller and once again with PARTYNEXTDOOR, as the pair performed tracks from their February album, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, together for the first time.
The set as a whole was completely unstructured – coming to a frantic end as Drake whizzed around the festival site on a crane platform while Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You boomed from the speakers.
As fireworks appeared from behind the stage, a mass of people headed for the exit.
But much to everyone’s surprise, the night wasn’t over – was Drake covering Ready or Not by the Fugees?
It turns out he wasn’t and pretty much everyone was surprised when none other than Lauryn Hill’s impressive vocals began to ring out across Finsbury Park.
She rattled through Ex-Factor as Finsbury Park’s curfew crept ever closer, transitioning into Nice For What, the 2018 Drake song which samples said track.
It was certainly the highlight of the evening, tainted slightly by Wireless’ technical team cutting the mics before Hill could sing one more song.
Star-studded Saturday
If Friday was frenetic, Saturday’s performance took the chaos factor to whole new levels.
The show can only be described as what would happen if Gen Z was put in charge of the Royal Variety Performance.
It was hard to keep up with the carousel of famous faces making their way onto the stage, each one met with more and more gasps from the crowd.
Emerging artist fakemink was the first UK rap artist to make an appearance, who was then replaced with Headie One.
The Tottenham rapper paced up and down the stage as he rapped alongside Drake on their track Only You Freestyle.
Then came drill artist K-Trap, followed by J Hus.
Drake famously brought J Hus on stage in 2019 on the day he was released from prison, which he referenced on Saturday evening as “one of my greatest moments as a performer”.
The pair jammed their way through their 2023 collaboration Who Told You, which proved the perfect accompaniment to a beautiful London sunset.
As fans battled with frozen phone cameras and sore arms from all the filming, there was no respite.
Skepta – who had already performed earlier with grime collective Boy Better Know, returned to the stage for Shutdown, a rap classic that just so happens to sample an old Drake social media video.
As the cameras cut to the Canadian, he could be seen smiling and dancing on the sidelines, clearly enjoying his own personal performance from some of UK rap’s titans.
“Nobody can out-rap London,” he mused from side of stage.
It felt impossible that each special guest could top the previous one, but then came Streatham rapper Dave, who made an exception from his music hiatus for one night only.
He performed his track with Drake – Wanna Know, who then teased that yet another guest was coming to the stage.
As Sprinter – arguably one of the biggest UK tracks of this decade began to play, audience screams reached their greatest of the weekend so far.
Central Cee made his way onto the stage, with Drake declaring him and Dave as “two of the biggest artists together at the moment”.
After collaborating on Sprinter, Central Cee launched into a selection of some of his biggest hits, including Band4Band, Doja and Obsessed With You.
It would be almost impossible to imagine that anyone left this show disappointed, unless they wanted to see Drake and Drake only.
He performed just 18 of the 60 songs across the two nights on his own – a departure from his usual touring style.
As Saturday drew to a close there were even more surprises – this time from across the pond.
PARTYNEXTDOOR once again made an appearance, as did female rappers Sexxy Red and Latto.
21 Savage did too, but was then replaced rather bizarrely with singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton.
Visuals of her playing piano and singing A Thousand Miles flashed across the mega on-stage screens as friends turned to each other bewildered.
Drake then once again climbed onto his crane for another round of Whitney, further intensifying the feeling that we had somehow been transported to the sticky dance floor of a hometown nightclub at 2am.
If there’s anything to take from two nights of back-to-back Drake, it’s that he will certainly always receive a warm welcome when he performs in the UK.
As someone who was bitterly labelled as a “culture vulture” by a British grime artist in 2019, the Canadian certainly got the opportunity to set the record straight over the weekend.
Drake joked on Saturday that he had “made a lot of phone calls” to the UK’s biggest rap and grime artists – whose willingness to support the Canadian at this time spoke volumes.
Whilst his feud with Kendrick Lamar has certainly provided more headlines than his recent music, these shows have proven that his mass appeal remains, as does his exceptional showmanship and enduring pop, rap and R&B back catalogue.
Drake performs alongside Burna Boy, Popcaan and Vybz Kartel on the final day of Wireless Festival on Sunday.
He will return to the UK in two weeks to play several arena shows with PARTYNEXTDOOR in Birmingham and Manchester.
