Drake made an unintentional anime reference in “Diplomatic Immunity”

The lyric “Shit is complex like short niggas ’round tall ladies” alludes to the anime Lovely Complex, about a short man and tall lady.

February 19, 2018

Drake is a fan of Netflix shows like Stranger Things, Ozark, and the soon-to-be rebooted London crime drama Top Boy, but is he spending time on CrunchyRoll, too? In January, Reddit user SwamiNB pointed out that a lyric in Drake's new song "Diplomatic Immunity" contains an uncanny – if likely unintentional – anime reference.

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The lyric in question is "Shit is complex like short niggas 'round tall ladies." That almost certainly is a diss directed at the hosts of Complex Media's Everyday Struggle, DJ Akademiks and Joe Budden, with "complex" also referring to the idea of a Napoleon complex (Budden, who has clashed with Drake before, has since left the program). Then again, there also exists Lovely Complex, an anime series about the romantic entanglements of two high schools, Ootani, a shorter-than-average guy, and Koizumi, a "tall lady."

This isn't even the first time Drake was linked with Japanese cartoons. In 2015, Drake was rumored to be the voice behind the theme song for Spider Riders, a Canadian-Japanese animated series. People dared themselves to dream it was Drake, despite sounding nothing like the rapper on the song... until the production company behind the theme revealed the writer as Jason Dantes Balde a.k.a. Clip of BrassMunk, a rap group from Scarborough, Ontario.

Let's be real: Drake did not rap about anime in "Diplomatic Immunity," as much as I wish we lived in that kind of world. The era of annotating rap lyrics for the "correct" meaning can lead to some real reaches, but they rarely translate to such hilarious coincidences. Drake might not have referenced anime yet, but in my heart, it feels like God's plan.

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Thumbnail photo via Drake's Instagram

Drake made an unintentional anime reference in “Diplomatic Immunity”