Drake Didn’t Need To Outdo Himself at His Dallas Show, But He Did Anyway. Because That’s Drake.

Drake believed his own hype back before everyone else did. That much is clear given the braggadocio in early tracks such as “Unstoppable” and “9AM in Dallas.”

But now those songs are ancient relics of the before time. These days, a wholesale laundry list of hits precedes Drake, and it would be easier to name some of the hits Drizzy didn’t play Thursday night at the American Airlines Center.

“Hotline Bling.” “All Me.” “Take Care.” “Life is Good.” Those are just four songs that he omitted from his setlist. No one, of course, took issue with that, given the vast catalog of chart-topping bangers he belted out as if doing so got him a free tuna melt at Quizno’s.

Yeah, you don’t get Old Yeller-rabid fans to storm the stage in Austin or make multitudes of fangirls cry on the jumbotron by having a modest chart presence. And being attractive and oozing with what the kids call “rizz” certainly can’t hurt, either.

Drake’s two Dallas shows (the second of which is happening at the same venue on Friday night) were in such high demand that an unusually large number of people were pretending to be with the Observer just to get in.

So, yeah, even 13 years after his debut album Thank Me Later, Drake still cultivates potent hype. Walking across the general admission area (with security, of course) to the wrestling diamond of a stage, the Champagne Papi himself sat down on a couch, where a lookalike of his teenage self sat and took bong rips. The real Drake read from a marble composition notebook while spitting the bars to the set’s opener, 2011’s “Look What You’ve Done.”

After the predictably shrill screams of 20,000 adoring fans, Drake said, “Oh, I missed you, Dallas. It’s been too long.” This being his first show in North Texas since 2018, he had to give a brief highlight reel of his many Dallas shows. One past show he mentioned by name was at the University of Texas at Arlington’s College Park Center in 2012, where he played a students-only show with then-up-and-comers ASAP Rocky and Kendrick Lamar.

He followed this anecdote with yet another beloved song from 2011’s Take Care: “Marvin’s Room.” As Drizzy serenaded the crowd, a light fixture hovering above the stage descended and set an ambiance for the more moody and atmospheric tenors of the night.

In contrast with that vibe, club bangers such as “Know Yourself” and “God’s Plan” were sprinkled in the set. While playing the song “Can I,” fans started chucking bras onto the stage, a practice which persisted throughout the evening (with one fan even making an unsuccessful attempt to chuck a bra from the nosebleeds).

Bras notwithstanding, the stage design was quite the spectacle. The couch from earlier descended down the stage platform just before the second of over 40 songs, only for a bed with the same actor lying in it to ascend roughly 15 minutes later. By that point, a skit of a young Drake watching TV in bed included a montage of theme songs from Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and ultimately ended with the theme song of the television series that gave Aubrey Graham his start: Degrassi: The Next Generation.

This skit was succeeded by a Peter Pan effigy circling throughout the entire arena as the song “Your Mother and Mine” played. Once this intermittent display of childhood nostalgia ended, Drake ascended back onto the stage on the same platform where the bed and couch stood, wearing a completely different fit. On his torso was an enlarged Nike logo with lighting that changed according to whatever the color scheme of the set was at any particular moment.

Subsequent floats and effigies throughout the night included a UFO (or a UAP, as they’re now called by aviation professionals), an anime blow-up doll (which fittingly floated through while Drake performed “Way 2 Sexy”), a shark, a pregnant woman emoji (which is seen on the cover of 2021’s Certified Lover Boy) and a sperm cell. It was as if the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was trying to make a cryptic artistic statement and scare away corporate partners in the process. But perhaps one of the most self-assured acts of Drake’s entire set came as he played the song “Headlines.” While performing this Take Care single, a news scroll appeared on the jumbotron and displayed inflammatory headlines about the rapper that were definitely real. Among these was a headline from a Refinery29 story titled, “Actually, Drake Has A Long History Of 'Nice Guy' Misogyny,” and one story that simply covered the Condé Nast lawsuit over a fake Vogue cover created by Drake's team to promote an album. The pointed shots at Vogue continued as an unflattering AI rendering of Anna Wintour (Vogue’s longtime editor-in-chief) appeared on the jumbotron as songs played from the album that was at the center of all the controversy: 2022’s Her Loss, a collaborative effort between Drake and 21 Savage.

21 Savage joined Drake toward the end of the set (after briefly playing his own set during a Drake intermission). They played some of their most famous collaborative cuts, including “Jimmy Cooks” and “Rich Flex.” During the encore, Drake premiered a snippet of “SLIME YOU OUT,” a single from his upcoming album For All the Dogs that features SZA and played the live debut of his 2020 song “Desires.”

Although the energy of the room was a tad bit more diluted at the end compared to the beginning, it was still intense enough to support the entire state’s power grid.

At certain points, the party vibes played second fiddle to the more wholesome moments, even if Drake occasionally spoke like a Hillsong youth pastor on MDMA. After seeing a couple of fans who flew all the way from Japan to see the show, Drake told them he was going to fly them back to the country in first class (which, for a flight that long, is a godsend). During one moment that admittedly warmed our cold, cynical hearts, Drake instructed everyone to hug strangers around them, an instruction that fans readily obliged with sincerity.

What was perhaps most captivating about the show is that Drake, ever the seasoned performer, knew that the audience’s attention was a given, but still worked to earn it. With each delightfully tacky float and 1990s TV homage, Drake kept the allure going. Whether the tone of the night swung toward opulent hedonism or romantic crooning, the excitement remained largely consistent.

And that, right there, is the mark of a true entertainer. Drake is in an industry that preys on the creative ambitions of the young and spits them out once their luster is depleted in a matter of months. It’s an industry where 21-year-olds are considered old because a 58-year-old A&R rep at a major label said so.

Drake is 36, and he is still dropping certifiable hit after certifiable hit. Being relentlessly mocked by many peers for his supposedly effeminate tendencies wasn’t enough to disrupt his success, just as beefs with Pusha T and Kanye West weren’t.

Staying power of that magnitude can only be harnessed by reminding the fans why they love you. Dallas fans probably didn’t need that reminder, but they got it anyway. Because Drake will only rest on his laurels when he’s dead.