For anyone who grew up in Toronto, driving around downtown is just what you did on the weekend. Some called it cruising, others called it car tourism. Whether you had your buddies with you, or were flying solo, you always had sick beats bumping and you sang along without shame. Whether you were driving a delivery truck or pushing a winter beater with a factory cassette deck, you did it with style. Behind the wheel, the world is yours.
Now, hip-hop legend Drake has immortalized the Toronto tradition in an hour-long livestream video for his new single ‘What Did I Miss?’. The first half of the video titled ICEMAN EPISODE 1, shows Drake dressed in a uniform for The Iceman a local Toronto business that makes and delivers ice blocks. Drake appears to be a worker, alone in the company’s Adelaide St warehouse. Just a normal guy carrying a clipboard, reheating his lunch in the breakroom microwave. Part way through the surreal livestream, the warehouse worker catches the new Drake video on TV.
The second half of the video (where the above YT clip starts) follows Drake behind the wheel of ‘The Iceman’ truck, driving around downtown. He’s got the windows cracked, and is singing along as he skips ahead from one track to another, actually previewing his soon-to-be-released album ‘The Iceman’. Watching the livestream felt like a glimpse into the life of a random dude in Toronto just driving downtown, like so many others do on Friday nights.
A totally creative rollout to a new album, the video was livestreamed on a Friday night in July. It’s not a music video; it is art. Modern performance art that blurs the line between the show and the real world around it. The livestream was shown on the big screen at Yonge Dundas Square. Random onlookers and die-hard fans started figuring out which streets Drake was driving on chased him down. By the time he gets to Yonge St, the delivery truck is getting mobbed by fans sharing love for the Toronto artist.
Here’s the actual music video.
Did you fit in “I Can’t Drive 55?”
I never got that song. Speed limit in the city is 60 km/h so what’s that guy even complaining about.
In 1974, Richard Nixon set the national maximum speed limit to 55 mph in response to the energy shock. Before that, speed limits were set by the states, so the max speed limit on I-40 and I-25 in New Mexico was 75 mph before the reduction to 55 mph. It was later repealed and set up to 65 mph, and these days, it’s back up to 75 mph in New Mexico. There are stretches on I-10 in Texas where the speed limit is 80 mph.
Driving across the country at 55 mph was torture. I got my driver’s license in October 1973, several months before the 55 mph limit went into effect. I drove my brother’s Triumph TR6+ to California after he got stationed there, and I could drive 75 to 85 mph on I-40 at that time. Not a bad drive at those speeds, but after the speed limit was reduced to 55 mph, driving to and from Phoenix, AZ, twice a year to take my grandmother there for the winter and bring her home for the summer was so slow and tedious.
If you had lived through the 55 mph years, you would understand the song.