If you haven’t asked yourself who Kiki is this summer, you clearly haven’t listened to Drake’s new track In My Feelings. ‘Kiki, do you love me’, is the highly repetitive and therefore highly catchy lyric used in the song. And it’s left fans wondering who Kiki is and why Drake wants her to love him so badly. Well, the mystery woman’s identity may have been revealed.
You may well have noticed your Instagram feed being taken over by the In My Feelings Challenge throughout July – a viral dance trend inspired by the track of the same name from Drake’s new album. The ubiquitous challenge was started by Instagram user The Shiggy Show, who shared a video of his smooth dance moves to In My Feelings earlier in July.
The clip has been watched more than 4.3 million times and has seen celebrities like Kevin Hart, Ciara, Odell Beckham Jr and Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown share their attempts at the dance challenge, aka #DoTheShiggy. It’s even had air stewards entertaining passengers with their renditions on flights! Think, the Mannequin Challenge circa 2016.
But fans are really wondering about the mystery woman in the opening line of the song. Drake raps: ‘Kiki, do you love me? Are you riding? Say you’ll never ever leave from beside me.’ Well, pour your heart out, Drizzy. What if the identity of ‘Kiki’ has been in our face all along?
Fans are speculating that the woman in question is actually Keshia Chante, former presenter of BET’s 106 & Park and Drake’s childhood friend from Canada. The former couple have actually been pretty open about their romance over the years. During his appearance on 106 & Park in 2013, Drake, 31, and Chante traded fond memories of their past relationship. According to Chante: ‘We got way back. We were 14.’
Explaining how they met, Chante said: ‘Someone at my record label said, ‘On your message board it says “Keshia Chante is in a relationship with Aubrey Graham”. I said, “That’s so weird, I just met him yesterday. Why is that?” ‘And this is how mean Aubrey’s game is… I remember saying, “Can you look up the user, like what email is registered to that user that posted that on my message board?”
It was like, drake@hotmail.com.’ Smooth, Drake. Smooth. The smitten rapper then admitted: ‘You were one of my first crushes, and a lot of people might not know this, but I actually rapped about you before.’
Yes, Drizzy has indeed used Chante as his lyrical muse several times. On his Born to be Successful mixtape track Fallen, Drake raps: ‘Keshia, Keshia, do you remember the old us? You just hold it down for your boy until the plaques arrive that’s why I love you.’
It seems Drake was also close with Chante’s mother Tessa, rapping on Deceiving: ‘What up Tessa, I love you like my own mama, and your daughter’s getting grown, mama. And me, I’m just here working, waiting, patient for her to be ready to love and leave alone drama.’ And judging by the lyrics on In My Feelings, Drake might still be waiting for Kiki’s love.
Also,if you’ve seen the ‘Free JT’ jackets from Drake’s In My Feelings video and wondered who JT is, let us explain. Drake’s video for his new track is set to drop today, which we know because he teased it on his Instagram Stories.
On Wednesday, he posted a picture showing a screenshot of two photos of Clair Huxtable from the Cosby’s, along with the words ‘In my feelings video tmrw.’ But he also gave a snapshot of what fans can expect from the video – which is where JT comes in.