DRAKE IS NO ANGEL
Rapper wears biker gear
B.C.’s top gang cops say they’re concerned about the message Toronto rapper Drake is sending his fans by wearing the support gear of a violent motorcycle gang.
In a photo posted Aug. 21 to U.S. rapper Travis Scott’s Instagram account, 31-year-old Drake, whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham, can be seen sitting beside Scott wearing a dark-coloured hoodie with ‘Toronto’ emblazoned across the chest above a circular logo bearing the slogan ‘Support Downtown Big Red Machine’ and the No. 81 (eight stands for ‘H’, one stands for ‘A’ in the alphabet). Both are well-known references to the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.
The hoodie Drake is wearing likely came from Route 81 Toronto, which sells Hells Angels merchandise online and at a store on Carlaw Avenue, including $120 embroidered hoodies with the same circular logo. The store’s Instagram account reposted the photo of Drake wearing the hoodie. The store didn’t return calls this week.
The photo had received more than 1.1 million ‘likes’ from Instagram users by Thursday.
“It’s extremely disappointing,” said Staff Sgt. Lindsey Houghton of B.C.’s anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.
He pointed to Drake’s statuses as a role model for youth and children, holder of a key to the City of Toronto and global ambassador for the Toronto Raptors basketball team. The Grammy-awardwinning musician is celebrated for his charitable work.
Houghton is questioning why Drake, with his massive fan base and influence, would wear the branding of an international criminal organization whose members have been convicted of drug trafficking and extremely violent offences, including “very highprofile gang wars where children were killed” and murders across the globe.
“This is a walking billboard for the Hells Angels and this is exactly what the Hells Angels want,” he said. “They want individuals like him to wear their paraphernalia and propaganda to portray a positive image, to counteract and provide a counter-message to messages and reporting from the media and police and, quite frankly, from the victims who they’ve impacted.”
The club allows only its own members to wear clothing printed with the words “Hells Angels” or the club’s “death’s head” logo. Support merchandise, like the hoodie worn by Drake, can be worn by anyone and is generally sold with branding such as “Support 81,” “Support Red and White” or “Support Big Red Machine.”
Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash said that because no one is suggesting Drake is breaking the law by wearing the support gear, it would be inappropriate for the force to comment.
“I will leave it up to others to comment on his clothing choices,” Pugash said.
Asked about the Drake photo, Rick Ciarniello, a Hells Angels spokesman in B.C., said only: “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.” Requests for comment from Drake’s publicist and agent weren’t returned.
Houghton said he believes there is no way Drake put the hoodie on without realizing what message he was sending.
“You’d have to have been living under a rock, especially back east, to not know who the Hells Angels are,” he said.
Houghton said he was also concerned by Drake’s use of the No. 81 in a verse of his song God’s Plan, which some people believe is a reference to Kobe Bryant scoring 81 points against the Raptors during a game in 2006, but which others believe is a nod to the gang: “Fifty Dub, I even got it tatted on me; 81, they’ll bring the crashers to the party; and you know me.”
Drake commented on the Scott photo from his own Instagram account, which has 46 million followers, with “Wow v v v rare 81 crashers,” suggesting Houghton’s interpretation of the lyric is accurate.
“For him to use the term ‘81’, everyone knows that stands for ‘HA,’” Houghton said. “Their branding, the name, the death head, are used to intimidate, cause fear and all of that, which we and many other police agencies have talked about for many, many years.”