Source: Tim Mosenfelder / Getty
Many were surprised that Big Freedia didn’t appear in Drake’s “Nice for What” video, even though her vocals were used in the chart-topping song. While many were excited to see her in the video for “In My Feelings,” the New Orleans bounce legend apparently had to make that happen herself.
“I decided to hit [Drake] up myself and was like, ‘Why you didn’t let me know you were in New Orleans?'” Freedia told TMZ. “And he was like, ‘I just got here. Why don’t you come through? We’re shooting a video tonight. I want you to get a few cameos.’ So I did that.”
“I had to call my people at midnight to come make me up and do my hair,” Freedia continued. “I made it to the video shoot at about 2:00 a.m. and we hung out until 6:00 a.m. He didn’t want me to get off the mic. He wanted to rock the mic and the crowd all night.”
Freedia said that while Drake didn’t directly apologize for not including her in the “Nice for What” video, she thought that her cameo in “In My Feelings” was a great way to make it up to her. It was also a great start in terms of solidarity between straight, cis hip-hop artists and LGBTQ+ people in an industry that has been historically and largely homophobic, transphobic and comfortable with promoting toxic masculinity.
“It wasn’t really an apology, because I guess he felt like, ‘you didn’t make Nice for What but that’s why I made sure that I responded as soon as you hit me up so that you could be in ‘In My Feelings.’ In that video,'” she said. “It’s definitely a step in the right direction. I think that other artists out there should feel the same way, that no matter what your background is — no matter if you’re a gay artist — that we can be able to be there just as anyone else.”
