Drake switches it up for the long-awaited “God’s Plan” video. After weeks of headlines featuring The Boy making charitable donations to schools and paying for grocery shopping sprees, he’s finally released the best flex in the history of rap music videos.
If that seems like a bold claim, it’s because of a tidbit revealed at the beginning of the Karena Evans-directed video. “The budget for this video was $996,631.90,” reads a title card at the opening. “We gave it all away. Don’t tell the label…”
That’s right. Instead of throwing racks at the strip club, renting a fleet of luxury cars, buying a mansion, or showing off an arsenal of prop guns, Drake did something no other rapper has done with a music video to date: He shared the wealth.
The people he interacts with throughout the video seem genuinely overjoyed not just to have him hand them giant stacks of cash, but just to have felt his presence. While rappers often visit “the hood” in their music videos, rarely do they reveal the conditions of everyday, working-class citizens, usually opting for the crew shot with all their boys behind them, glaring at the camera.
Here the lens captures outbursts of emotion; one woman and sheds overwhelmed tears of happiness while clutching her son, who looks so stunned that someone would take care of them, he doesn’t know what expression to put on his face.
It’s an uplifting video that comes along right in the troubled times its needed most.
