Drake gives Bow Wow his flowers: “That’s somebody who I wanted to be like growing up”

Drake is no stranger to showing love to his rap idols. There’s his mentor Lil Wayne and his label mate Nicki Minaj, but the “6 God” rapper says he’s also indebted to the work and career of Bow Wow.

After walking out to the stage with Bow Wow during the Atlanta stop on his It’s All a Blur Tour, Drake took the stage to acknowledge him as someone who inspired him as a child. 

“I wanna shout out, shout out my boy Bow for walking me to stage tonight, I gotta say,” Drake started. “Atlanta got a lot of legends but that’s somebody I wanted to be like when I was growing up.”

“So, shoutout to Bow Wizzle for walking me to stage,” he added.

It’s not the first time Drake’s publicly given Bow Wow his flowers. Back in 2021, when Drake celebrated his achievement of simultaneously debuting three songs on the Hot 100 chart, he partied with a host of friends including Bow and posted a video, later shared by AllHipHop, explaining how meeting up with the rapper was most important. 

“I had to link with Wizzle. Everybody wants to have drinks and everybody wants to celebrate and turn up and, you know, I just had to see Wizzle,” Drake said. “I had to see Wizzle in person. If it wasn’t for you, there wouldn’t be no me. That’s why, you know the rest.”