While the surface-oriented recklessness of the clip's reception parallels the song's freewheeling hook, there are deeper ideas about identity and memory embedded in both the video's ceremonial scenes and the song's verses. "HYFR" proves to be, at times, an apt soundtrack to this unlikely setting. The clip's re-bar mitzvah "ceremony" took place at the Temple Israel of Greater Miami and featured bagels and Manischewitz, a tallit and yarmulke, the Torah and the hora, and was attended by Trey Songz, Birdman, DJ Khaled, and Lil Wayne, who wore a panda ski mask. Kelly, and Common over the last 14 years. The "HYFR" visual, which dropped right at the start of Passover, was handled by veteran Director X, who has worked with the likes of Aaliyah, Kanye West, The-Dream, R. "I told myself that, if I ever got rich, I would throw myself a re-bar mitzvah." (Miller, thankfully, is nowhere to be found.) "When I had a bar mitzvah back in the day, my mom didn't have much money," Drake explains in a behind-the-scenes clip. "Yeah," he adds, his sarcasm building, "we all re-enact bar mitzvahs and do very Jewish things together."Īnd the flip joke turns out to be more of a hint in light of his recent video for "HYFR", which actually finds the Canadian MC coming of age all over again.
#Hyfr music video mac#
"Now, you're half Jewish," the host, Chelsea Handler, asserts. "I didn't know there were any Jewish rappers." Drake responds with a smirk and easy laugh: "There are now." He then notes that fellow rapper Mac Miller is Jewish, too. Watch both videos below.Director's Cut features interviews with the people behind today's best music videos.įive months ago, Drake appeared on the late-night television program "Chelsea Lately", where he fielded questions about sex, Nicki Minaj, and Judaism. It makes me want to look into getting my re-First Communion or something. Lil Wayne wears a panda mask and the worst suit I have ever seen in my life.
It follows what happens when Drake decides to get re-Bar Mitzvahed, which I didn’t even know was a thing, and the guests - which include Wayne, Birdman, Trey Songz, and DJ Khaled - get memorably drunk at the reception. Meanwhile, director Joseph Labisi’s video for the Lil Wayne collab “HYFR” is a complete 180 from the other one and a ridiculous amount of fun.
Director Yoann Lemoine (otherwise known as Woodkid) intersperses shots of Drake and Rihanna in what looks like an endless hug with slow-motion footage of blue jays, wild yaks, snow-capped mountains, forests on fire, and other things that, as far as I can tell, have nothing to do with anything.
The album’s Rihanna duet title track is an emotively clubby Jamie xx-produced track, a reworking of one of his Gil Scott-Heron remixes, and its video is a sparse, arty affair. Perhaps because of some unexplained hatred for music bloggers, Drake picked Friday night to release two videos for singles from Take Care, Stereogum’s second-favorite album of 2011.