Why Pete Davidson thinks Drake is the “best actor of all time”
Drake isn’t someone who’s garnered a lot of praise in recent years. He’s always been a divisive figure, with half the industry praising his every move, while the other half conspires against him.
But, since his famous beef with Kendrick Lamar last year, it’s become even more popular to hate the rapper. With the kind of allegations Lamar was throwing at him, a lot of people have made it their prerogative to distance themselves from him as much as humanly possible.
Ever the divisive figure himself, Pete Davidson, however, seems to be one person who’s happy to give Drake credit where it’s due. Speaking to radio DJ Peter Rosenberg, Davidson called Drake “the best actor of all time”. I know what you’re thinking, best actor of all time? Isn’t his main acting credit as Jimmy Brooks in Degrassi: Next Generation? Well, yes. Apart from his first role, he was in a handful of other random television shows and once hosted Saturday Night Live.
So, is that what Davidson is referencing? No.
While Drake hosted SNL a few times back in the 2010s during Davidson’s time there, and it was fairly well-received by audiences at the time, it’s a much longer role of Drake’s that the latter is looking at. “He’s been acting as a dope rapper for fucking seven years. He’s the best actor of all time”, he told Rosenberg.
And, maybe that’s what all Drake’s haters have been missing this whole time. They’ve got it wrong. Drake might not be the greatest rapper of all time, sure, but he does a damn good job at pretending he is. Even Rosenberg, who is known to be a long-time critic of his, concedes, “It sounds like an insult, but it’s not. He happens to be good, but the part he’s playing is not himself”.
When so many actual actors are criticised for simply playing themselves, really, there’s no higher praise. As Rosenberg points out, it’s the role of his lifetime, and he’s not only playing it on set, he’s playing it all the time. Even Daniel Day-Lewis has to break character every once in a while.
In all seriousness, Drake has frequently been criticised for his inauthenticity and frequent self-aggrandisement. He’s often compared himself to some of the greatest rappers of all time, think Lamar, and painted himself as a struggling artist from a difficult background, “starting from the bottom”, as many rappers have been. But the reality is, he had a fairly comfortable middle-class upbringing that culminated in him getting cast in Degrassi. After all, his dad was friends with his acting agent.
Regardless of your opinion of him, it’s really not wrong to say he’s been acting the part for a long time. And while the aforementioned video of Davidson’s ‘compliment’ has been doing the rounds on social media again since March this year, it was actually from some time in the late 2010s, after his time on SNL in 2016. So, while it’s currently trendy to criticise the rapper, these criticisms have been levelled at him for much longer than you might realise.
