Sure, Drake might be taking home an award from this year’s Grammys for his song “God’s Plan,” but he wants everyone to know: You absolutely should not care if you ever win a Grammy, which he is doing currently, as he tells you this. “I want to let you know we play in an opinion-based sport, not a factual-based sport,” the rapper said in his acceptance speech for Best Rap Song Sunday night. “So it’s not the NBA, where at the end of the year you’re holding a trophy because you made the right decisions or won the games.”
Continued Drake, “This is a business where sometimes it’s up to a bunch of people that might not understand what a mixed-race kid from Canada has to say, or a fly Spanish girl from New York or anybody else or a brother from Houston, my brother Travis [Scott]. The point is, you’ve already won if you have people who are singing your songs word for word, if you’re a hero in your home town.”
Concludes the rapper “If there’s people who have regular jobs who are coming out in the rain, in the snow, spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows, you don’t need this right here. I promise you. You’ve already won.” As if that wasn’t enough, you even get to hear Drake say a sudden “But!” really quickly before the telecast cuts to commercial.
Update, February 11: The producers of the Grammys offered Drake an opportunity to finish his Grammys speech onstage, but he declined. According to a rep, his speech wasn’t cut off, rather the producers interpreted a pause as the speech’s conclusion. “However, the producers did speak with Drake following his speech and did offer him to come back onstage to finish whatever his thoughts were,” a rep for the show said in a statement. “Drake said he was happy with what he said and had nothing else to add to it.” You don’t need a Grammy, but having one doesn’t hurt.
Reporting by Taylor Ferber.