It has been a while since any basketball has been played at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena — aka “Jurassic Park,” because “The Toronto Raptors,” naturally — so you’d be forgiven for forgetting that local rap hero Drake actually has a position with the team. Aside from being a courtside fixture and occasionally popping up in the broadcast booth, Drake is also a “Global Ambassador” for the team, which is ostensibly a marketing gig but seems to entail a lot of sideline trolling, such as a little trash talk with Montrezl Harris in last night’s season opener.
Drake’s return to Jurassic Park is also once again generating viral memes after a video of Drake greeting his fellow regulars at the arena posted by the Raptors Twitter and reposted by Sportscenter reminded fans of a classic sketch from Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele Comedy Central show, Key & Peele. If you haven’t already you can watch the sketch above. In it, Jordan Peele impersonates President Barack Obama, lightly satirizing Obama’s habit of “code-switching” on the fly — even at official State functions.
7:30pm in Toronto. pic.twitter.com/uuJ8zNLdW7
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) October 20, 2021
Fans immediately noticed that Drake took a similar tack (for what it’s worth, the parallels between Drake and Obama would make a fascinating feature, someone remind me to pitch that) with fellow fans at Scotiabank Arena, giving some daps and pounds while greeting others with polite handshakes. Some also noticed that the fan who received the handshake appeared to be SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, wondering whether Drake wasn’t feeling the billionaire. Check out some of the responses below.
This really reminds me of that Key and Peele skit with how black people greet each other vs white people https://t.co/Kq7CYYN9W0
— PRIDE (@GumboGoon) October 21, 2021
He literally did the Key and Peel skit pic.twitter.com/G7v8ouEWoS
— Perstep (@44pers) October 21, 2021
Same energy pic.twitter.com/ccK4fUY1ij
— Mike Vanburen (@GoDucksMVB) October 21, 2021
He’s not messing with Elon https://t.co/MPra4MOkdK
— TJSumz (@TjSumz) October 21, 2021
“what’s good bro ”
“Good evening sir ” https://t.co/qJGIBTD0qS— parqur (@wiggledicker) October 21, 2021
he hugged security, and walked past the weird white guy https://t.co/NgG5HxDY1S
— Mgebe (@Xhocolate__) October 21, 2021