We can’t tell what he’s chanting his mouth isn’t moving, the friends and family are nodding their heads to the track, and the scene cuts back and forth to Drake rapping in front of the synagogue and in an empty sanctuary. Well, that and the painstaking shots of Drake up on the bimah. If we hadn’t been told in advance that it means something to the artist, “HYFR” could pass for a “Saturday Night Live” short. We get actual footage from baby Drake’s celebration at the intro, but beyond that, this is a music video staged at a bar mitzvah. Drake’s much-anticipated “bar mitzvah” video, released on the first night of Passover, was originally hyped on the web as a “re-creation” of his original childhood ceremony. The text at the beginning of Drake’s video for “HYFR” - “On October 24th 2011 Aubrey ‘Drake’ Graham chose to get re-bar mitzvah’d as a re-commitment to the Jewish religion … the following is a clip displaying the event that took place” - can be taken as seriously or sardonically as you want.

Drake’s “HYFR”: Whose Bar Mitzvah Is It Anyway?

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