"And you do dinners at French Laundry in Napa Valley."
- The Ride, Drake
I've possibly listened to this album a million times and have never really heard this line and appreciate the true glory that it is. One, French Laundry is obviously an amazing restaurant and surprisingly there is a vegetarian tasting menu which earns the restaurant extra credit. Two, this class has endeared me to Napa Valley far more than I was prior to taking this course. Third, and most importantly, I began to think about rappers relationship with alcohol. More specifically, I was wondering:
- How many rappers refer to fine wine in their lyrics? And further,
- Does this change with age or success? (i.e. are older and/or more successful rappers more likely to reference champagne or fine wine versus other types of alcohol)
As the author points out, he found 49 references to specific drinks in drake versus. Again, by the numbers the author notes: two double-pump lattes, five wine mentions, nine mentions of champagne, five mentions of Patron, one mention of whiskey, two Coronas, three mentions of rose and four mentions of Hennessy. In total, over a third of Drake's alcohol mentions have to do with wine. And what's more interesting is that almost 75% of those mentions have come in Drake's more recent albums which could be indicative of a burgeoning taste for wine that he did not have earlier in his career. I would also point out that Drake owns a Whiskey brand (Virginia Black). Shockingly, there are not many mentions to this brand. I would have expected far more significant promotion. In any event, this was an interesting thought exercise and I am now curious how his results compare to other rappers.
PS: This interesting list of Jay-Z lyrics referencing wine.
Thanks for sharing these data gems- impressed you attempted to catalog all of the wine mentions! I also found a very interesting article on the power of celebrity endorsement for certain brands. https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2014/11/top-10-rap-star-wines/
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of artists making plays in the wine industry from Jay Z to Justin Timberlake!