Girls Love Beyonce

Hip-Hop artist Aubrey Drake Graham, better known as Drake, was born in Toronto, Canada on October 24, 1986. The television actor/ rapper got his start on the hit TV show Degrassi: The Next Generation in which he portrayed a high school basketball star who was crippled after being shot by a fellow classmate. From there, Drake started his rap career with two mixtapes: “Room for Improvement” and “Comeback Season,” which featured the song “Replacement Girl,” a hit that was shown on Black Entertainment Television’s hit show 106 & Park. 


Since his start in the Hip- Hop industry with Birdman’s record label Young Money Entertainment, Drake’s music has become extremely popular with his teenage audience and adults as well. Favored for being able to produce faster, more upbeat songs along with slow, heart warming melodies, Drake’s album covers and photos are often plastered across television screens and billboards. Some of his most famous songs include “Over” from the album “Thank Me Later,” “Marvin’s Room” from the album “Take Care,” and “Hold on We’re Going Home” from his most recent album “Nothing Was the Same.” 

Since the beginning of his Hip- Hop career in 2006, Drake has been nominated for 163 music awards and has won forty of them. Most recently, the  rapper won video of the year and Coca- Cola’s viewer’s choice awards for one of his newer songs titled “Started From the Bottom. Drake’s other awards include six BET Hip- Hop awards, one Grammy,  four Juno Awards, two Soul Train Music Awards, two Teen Choice awards and the Man of the Year award. With two platinum albums and the most recent at the top of the charts, rapper Drake has won his way into the hearts of his listeners and created a safe space for him to be able to release feelings of heartbreak and a care for women that most rappers refuse to speak of.

Music link to "Girls Love Beyonce"

Recently, Drake released a song titled “Girls Love Beyonce,” which features R&B artist James Fauntleroy and was produced by Noah Shebib. In Girls Love Beyonce, Drake flips and defines the gender roles within relationships as he pens the lyrics

“girls love to f*ck with your conscience.
 Girls hate when n*ggas go missing and shawty you ain’t no different.” 

In the previous lines, the rapper speaks of the tendency of women to play mind games with partners and male tendencies to take personal time away from relationships, which goes against societal relationship norms. I venture to say that usually women complain of men’s bad habits of playing mind games and women play the part of needing “space” and taking personal time away from relationships.
        
The song moves into a very popular and familiar chorus sang by James Fauntleroy. The chorus features the lyrics to a song by 90’s R&B group Destiny’s Child titled “Say My Name.” The tune was written in 2001 by members of the group with the help of Lashawn Daniels, Fred Jerkins, and Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. The original song tells the story of a woman who is suspicious of her partner’s whereabouts. Because of her suspicions, she ventures to tell her partner to “say my name, say my name, if no one is around you, say baby I love you.” Drake’s use of this familiar chorus by Destiny's Child, whose lead singer was Beyonce, hints the name of the song, "Girls Love Beyonce." The chorus also serves as a play on the song’s gender flip: women being the more promiscuous partners in relationships. 

Music Link to "Say My Name"

 In the second verse, Drake pens a more relatable idea that young men care more about getting money than maintaining relationships. Today’s media features a wide variety of songs about men having scandalous sex with random women without the intention of getting into serious relationships. Hip- Hop songs by artists like Lil Wayne, Big Sean, and Juicy J feature this same idea that unwed, thoughtless sex with random women is acceptable, as long as there are no emotions that follow and the artist is able to return to his normal lifestyle of “getting money.” 

 In contrast to the previous idea, the second verse touches on men’s need to provide for their partners. With the lines “I need someone that’ll help me think of someone besides myself,” the rapper tells the story of a bachelor who looks for companionship and when he finds it, devotes his time to his woman instead of going “out every evening,” a trait viewed in popular culture as specific to males. Drake shows through these lyrics his need to not only find companionship as he nears age thirty but also spend money and buy luxurious things for someone other than himself. 

Through the lyrics of “Girls Love Beyonce,” Drake shows a more sentimental, emotion bearing side of himself, one that his audience has been exposed to before but never on such a culturally defining level. With lyrics from his own experience, Drake puts a spin on the norm by flipping societal gender roles and defining them as well. Women, usually seen as caring, faithful, passionate members of relationships, are portrayed by Drake as the more deceiving and less caring members. Reversing the roles, Drake makes women the partners who play mind games and make men the partners in need of personal space and time alone. Drake defines his own role as a man by admitting to having admirers, but denying that he is the only one who does. With his lyrics, Drake becomes the voice of men all over who want companionship of a higher degree, a more serious kind of love.