Does Drake Even Know How to Smoke Weed?

It’s no secret that Drake sucks at smoking weed: He rarely raps about it; he routinely claims to only do it in moderation; he never posts the late-night smoked-out Instagram. He’s such a lightweight that he recently made headlines for allegedly getting too stoned to perform at a concert in Amsterdam, which, buddy, come on. Now, maybe Drake is so weed-averse because he just wants to be a good role model—after all, he’s the biggest rapper in the world, and many people of all ages and backgrounds listen to his music. Or maybe he’s being fiscally responsible because of the high price an extravagant weed lifestyle can cost musicians. Maybe he’s even concerned about the legal consequences and doesn’t want to spend his peak years facing drug charges.

But maybe there’s something darker and more sinister at play. Maybe the reason Drake rarely smokes weed is that… Drake doesn’t know how to smoke weed at all.

That’s right. We here at Noisey are hereby putting forth the conspiracy theory that despite his money, his fame, and his connections, no one ever showed Drake how to smoke weed and, as a result, he is a 30-year-old man physically incapable of properly hitting a blunt. He may have started from the bottom, but, contrary to his lyrics, he definitely stayed there because he has absolutely no idea how to get high.

“How can you be so sure that Drake doesn’t know how to smoke weed?” you may be asking. Surely, as the world’s most famous rapper, as the protegé of Lil Wayne, he must have someone around who can show him, right? Perhaps. Or perhaps he has always just tried to play it cool and act like he knows what’s going on, and, at this point, he is understandably too embarrassed to ask.

Is this possible? Could Drake actually be worse at smoking weed than he is at working out? Could this be the biggest hip-hop cover-up of all time? Let’s look at the evidence:

Exhibit A: The Wiz Khalifa Video

Here we have a video of Drake performing with Wiz Khalifa in 2014. First, consider that this video is supposedly the first time Drake ever smoked weed onstage, making it a pivotal piece of evidence in the case for or against his ability to smoke weed at all. Now, consider what visual clues it might offer. Let’s look at Drake taking the stage:

Look us in the eyes and tell us this is a guy who has ever smoked weed before. Honestly tell us this guy has inhaled the tiniest modicum of kush and absorbed any of the calm that comes with it. It looks like he loaded up on Fun Dip and Mountain Dew before rushing out there. Now, in comparison, let’s look at Wiz Khalifa taking the stage:

Notice the slow pace, the trailing cloud that envelops his entire body, the fact that he just looks like a fucking guy who has smoked weed before. In comparison to Drake’s hyperactive, childlike stage antics, it’s pretty clear which of these two is well versed in the art of weed smoking. We can even zoom and enhance the side-by-side comparison in the ensuing frames:

After a few minutes, Wiz passes the blunt to Drake, who hits it. But smoke immediately leaves his mouth, indicating that he pulled a “Bill Clinton” and had no intention of actually inhaling. Furthermore, you may notice that he looks at the blunt, as if considering taking a second hit or perhaps wondering whether or not the first puff was done correctly but ultimately does not put it to his lips again. Busted:

There’s also something to be said for the room’s reaction. First, look at Wiz who is bursting with the incredulousness of a kid who just tricked his teacher into asking what BOFA is. It’s the same reaction Drake himself had to David Blaine spitting up frogs:

Furthermore, look and listen to the crowd’s response:

Everyone is screaming and scrambling to take photos of the rare merger of Drake and weed. Hell, this one guy looks like he just witnessed his team winning the World Series:

Once again, honestly tell us that is a normal reaction to seeing someone who has smoked weed ever in their life smoke weed.

Exhibit B: The Lil Wayne Video

This video here, though, is the nonsmoking gun. In 2014, Drake toured with his mentor Lil Wayne, a renowned marijuana enthusiast, and, as part of the show, each night the two smoked weed together on this comically smoky stage, as captured by Wayne’s own videographer. What are we to make of this?

As we can see, there is smoke coming from multiple sources, which, unless we’re to believe there is a second smoker, appear to be fog machines. Why were there so many fog machines? It’s almost as if Drake is overcompensating for his own inability to smoke the stage out, literally covering up his shortcomings with smoke and mirrors.

When Wayne passes the blunt to Drake, he hits it, and, much like in the Wiz Khalifa video, he blows the smoke out within milliseconds. Again, clearly no inhale:

Also, look how into Wayne’s singing Drake becomes right after he does it. See that forced smile?

Could it be any clearer that Drake is trying to shift attention from the nonexistent smoke coming out of his lungs?

This raises another question: If Drake truly doesn’t know how to smoke weed, is this being covered up by Wayne? Does it go all the way to the top of Young Money?

Exhibit C: His Interviews

Drake doesn’t shy away from the topic of weed. In multiple interviews, including this recent one with University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari and a 2014 appearance on Jimmy Fallon, he tells the story of the first time he (supposedly) smoked weed—right before his first Degrassi audition. The story is that he smoked weed with his friends to try to look cool and then deeply regretted it when he had to go to the audition, which sounds exactly like the story that anyone who has ever taken a D.A.R.E. class or seen a Lifetime movie has heard. Plus, as we know, he eventually got the part, which doesn’t sound like something he would have been able to do if he were as high as he claimed to be. Unless, of course, he never smoked the weed in the first place…

Exhibit D: Drake’s Lyrics

By now, you might be thinking that, OK, sure, this all lines up nicely. These videos and images build a pretty compelling case. But at the end of the day, we live in an era of Photoshop hoaxes, a time when many a viral video turns out to be staged. You can’t trust that stuff. We get it. So why don’t we look to the man himself, who has surely rapped about the reliable muse of puffing that Mary Jane on more than one occasion… right? But for as deep as Drake’s musical catalog is, there are suspiciously few songs in it about weed. He has a song called “Free Smoke,” sure, but it has nothing to do with smoking. He has multiple lyrics about cough syrup, but given the way he talks about Robitussin, he’s probably using it to deal with all the coughing that comes from not being able to smoke weed properly. “YOLO” is obviously the motto of someone who has never gotten stoned and contemplated the possibility of reincarnation. Nick Drake has more songs about weed than Drake does. And among the few songs in which Drake does mention weed, there is a very peculiar commonality.

Here he is on 2011’s “Crew Love”:

“Smoking weed under star projectors,
I guess we’ll never know what Harvard gets us”

Drake’s idea of getting high apparently invokes a 1970s hippie stoner notion of looking up at a planetarium during a Laser Floyd show like an episode of Freaks and Geeks. Which, fine, that can be a fun thing to do. Many stoners have done it. But here he is two years later on A$AP Rocky’s “Fuckin’ Problems”:

“Ain’t a fuckin’ sing-along unless you brought the weed along…
Or we can stare up at the stars and put the Beatles on”

Another reference to getting high and looking up at the stars—while listening to the Beatles, no less. It’s like someone told Drake to write a lyric about weed and he asked “what do people do when they’re high?” on Yahoo! Answers and wrote down the first reply he got from DeadHead420. If Drake really did know how to smoke, don’t you think he would have some lyrics about getting high and doing literally any other activity besides staring at fucking stars?

Exhibit E: Drake Hired a Vape Coach

As was recently reported, Drake was so impressed by an Instagrammer’s vape tricks that he flew him out to his mansion to give him lessons and hook him up with a vape starter kit. On the surface, inviting a 21-year-old vape expert over via Insta DMs seems like a pretty baller move by a celebrity rich enough to buy anything he wants on a whim. But when viewed in the context of Drake being a grown man who was never properly taught how to smoke weed, it starts to feel a lot sadder. There’s a bleakness in imagining Drake, alone in his spacious mansion, surrounded by his possessions but unable to perform a fundamental cool task, and so desperate for someone to teach him that he enlists the help of a young stranger. For what it’s worth though, this dude’s vape tricks are fucking sick.

The Verdict

Any one of Drake’s odd weed encounters taken in isolation might be small enough to explain away. But once you see the facts laid out clearly, the case goes from 0-100 real quick. It’s not just that Drake sucks at smoking weed. The man clearly has no understanding of the basic physical act. We now know with all the pot line things, all the evidence can only mean one thing: Drake definitely does not know how to smoke weed.

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