Justin Bieber’s Drake-gifted OVO chain resurfaces, and he shouts-out the rapper on Instagram.
Justin Bieber and Drake go way back. They’re both Canadian, both are artists in the music business and into hip-hop and R&B.
In an 2013 interview with The Hollywood Reporter , Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, said,
“Drake is like a big brother to Justin. And Justin really looks up to Drake.”
Braun added: “They have an extremely special relationship.”
And it seems the “Baby” superstar was thinking about Drake Friday when he posted an Instagram selfie wearing an OVO chain the rapper gave him last year .
Drake conceived and hosts the OVO festival, an annual hip-hop concert in Toronto.
The caption to Justin’s selfie read “@champagnepapi still got the #ovo chain, my bro.”
In a nice touch, Drake later regrammed it from his account, after he and Lil Wayne opened up their joint-named tour at the Darien Lake Performance Arts Center in New York Friday.
Drake’s caption reads “My brother @justinbieber repping that SOUND.”
The duo’s exchange should silence claims that Bieber mocked Drake in a since deleted Instavid of himself faux-singing the rapper’s hit “0 to 100,” which he sent to Chris Brown last Saturday.
Some of you may recall when Justin first posted a clearly delighted selfie wearing Drake’s OVO chain gift around a year ago.
Beaming like a kid on Christmas morning, the singer wrote : “Shoutout to my big brother @champagnepapi for blessing me with this OVO chain #family.”
Since then, the two reportedly met up a while back when Justin hopped over to Canada for a break. Two arrests, a recent vandalism conviction, a stack of civil lawsuits and an almost unanimously negative media narrative later — things have certainly changed for Bieber.
Some have mused that Bieber is going through an identity crisis – a.k.a.- media speak for ‘he thinks he’s black’ or gangsta.
But, frankly, it’s not that surprising that a kid who grew up listening to Chris Brown, MJ and Tupac, then relocated to urban music nexus Atlanta to be mentored by Usher before going on to make pals in the worlds of R&B/hip-hop feels at ease with African-American culture.
Bieber stepping out to the Shmoney dance on Friday, a case in point.
Factor into that , insane levels of scrutiny and pressure to better the successes and record setting that has marked Bieber’s career to date, small wonder if he feels the weight.
MTV reports an “Instagram regram from Drake is proof of a particular kind of importance—Drizzy curates his Instagram with a fine-tuned sensibility… he also calls Justin his brother in the caption, which might be a throwback to Bieber’s own 2010 shoutout.”
Could a Justin Bieber and Drake collaboration be on the cards? Cameos on each other’s upcoming albums? Back in 2012, the pair teamed up for “Right Here” and Drake penned the beatific “One Life” on Justin’s Journals album last year.
These two artists are too good not to work together again. Get OVO to a studio. Stat.
( Photo via Justin Bieber Instagram : the singer hits a music lab, August 8 .)