Last week, Canadian rapper Drake released his highly-anticipated new album, For All the Dogs. Unfortunately, it quickly started to make headlines in Singapore for all the wrong reasons. The thirteenth song on his new album, Drew a Picasso, saw Singaporeans expressing 34.5% negative sentiments online against Drake, up from 0%, after a line in the track insulted the country, according to media intelligence firm CARMA.

In Drew a Picasso, at the 3.33-minute mark, Drake unexpectedly sings, “Since you know I got a soft spot for you, this has turned into a civil war. Artists hittin’ on you broke as f**k, I swear them n****s probably live in Singapore.” The line alludes to his romantic interest’s suitors, saying that they are so poor that they probably live in Singapore.

Singaporeans, understandably, reacted with shock. According to CARMA, social conversations by netizens in Singapore, sentiments towards Drake were 44.4% positive and 0% negative before the track, and 11.5% positive and 34.5% negative after.

Sentiments then continued to remain negative towards Drake over the course of the week.

Online, Singaporeans were quick to express their views. A check with CARMA confirmed that the online word cloud prior to the incident saw words such as ‘rapper’, ‘released’, rendition’ and ‘artistic’ coming out on top.

Following the release of the track, conversations shifted drastically online with words such as ‘broke’, ‘insulted’, ‘challenged’ and ‘diss’ coming out on top in relation to Drake.

Online, netizens also talked extensively about how Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world so the track was clearly misinformed and Drake did not do his research. Others, particularly on Reddit, noted that they live in Singapore and are struggling financially so the track did have some merit to it.

Drake has yet to respond to the online uproar.

(Source: Marketing Interactive)