Ranking Drake’s Best Remixes With Rising Artists

Drake has a long history of working with rising artists on the verge of breakout success.

More specifically, he has a habit of jumping on remixes of viral songs from up-and-comers, laying down verses that fit into their pre-established worlds. Whether it’s remixing Yung Bleu’s popular “You’re Mines Still” with bars that channel the nerves of meeting your girlfriend's ex or adding a verse to Fetty Wap’s “My Way” that set the streets of Jersey on fire, Drake always knows precisely how to take these songs to new heights.

This week, he’s teasing a new remix of rising Dallas singer 4Batz’s popular song “Act ii: Date @ 8,” which would add to his growing catalog of remixes. The song won’t drop until Friday, but in anticipation of the song, we ranked Drake’s best remixes with rising artists.

Drake has been tapped into the international music scene since the beginning of his career, so it was only natural for him to link up with UK rapper Dave on their “Wanna Know” remix. While the track didn’t reach the same astronomical heights as some of the other remixes he’s hopped on, it did give Dave one of his first platinum records, and it’s a rare moment where Drake didn’t adopt a British flow for a song with a British rapper, while delivering a solid verse. —Jordan Rose

Drake and Wizkid had already made magic once with “One Dance,” which is currently the Toronto rapper’s all-time most streamed song on Spotify, but they struck gold again a year later on the remix to Wizkid’s song “Ojuelegba” with Skepta, named after the neighborhood where Wizkid grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. Drake never quite finds his footing on the remix over a smooth beat, and Skepta delivers the superior verse, but the song’s biggest strength is the way that all three artists blend so well together. —Jordan Rose

Drake’s verse on Yung Bleu’s “You’re Mines Still” remix is a perfect example of how he’s able to translate hyper-specific but extremely relatable experiences to wax. A bar like “I took you to the club and you hugged on somebody that I know/And I know them type of hugs/Same shit I do to women when I know I used to fuck/And I know they with they nigga, but they never brought it up,” is very Drake-coded, but also relatable to anyone who’s ever been in this unfortunate situation. And it fits perfectly into the framework of the song, helping to make the “You’re Mines Still” Yung Bleu’s biggest song to date. —Jordan Rose

History would prove that Future and Drake are an unstoppable duo, and their “Tony Montana” remix goes down as one of the earliest showings of how natural their chemistry is. Future was just beginning to establish himself when he released “Tony Montana” as a single, and Drake was still riding off the success of Take Care, so they connected with each other at a perfect point in both of their careers. Drake wasn’t playing big homie to Future by jumping on this remix, but the Toronto rapper did his best to find his footing next to a burgeoning Atlanta superstar to create a memorable moment. —Jordan Rose

This might have been one of the most challenging remixes for Drake to naturally insert himself into because the original track was meant to be for the girls, but he glides with the subtle flavor of a French 75 on Summer Walker’s “Girls Need Love” remix. It takes an elite skillset to make a bar like, “I get it, I'm on your side, guys get their way all the time,” sound genuine, and not like you’re pandering to the opposite sex, but Drake does exactly that in his verse. Like Summer, he knows what to say and how to say it, making them perfect dance partners on this remix. Summer was already poppin’ before this song, but it was a big moment for her as she rose to new levels of popularity, qualifying her for this list. —Jordan Rose

You really had to be outside in 2015 to understand the full gravity of a track like Fetty Wap’s “My Way” remix. I’ll never forget driving down New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway on a hot summer afternoon and suddenly hearing Drake glide into the already-viral track with, “All I gotta do is put my mind to this shit (Goddam!).” His verse is short and sweet, but it’s still memorable because of how he found Fetty’s pocket so effortlessly. Fetty was already having his moment in the tri-state area at the time, but Drake hopping onto “My Way” was something that not even the most proud Jersey resident (like myself) could have predicted. —Jordan Rose 

The video of Makonnen hearing Drake’s verse on “Tuesday” for the first time while tripping on shrooms is still one of the best things on the internet. Drizzy was in the middle of the Drake vs. Lil Wayne Tour at the time, and on the Tuesday night after the Chicago stop, he dropped the track on OctoberVeryOwn’s SoundCloud. From that moment, club playlists across the world were never the same (especially on Tuesdays) and “Squad goin' up, nobody flippin' packs now!” remains one of the most screamable rap bars in Drake’s discography to this day. —Stefan Breskin

The Migos were destined for greatness when they dropped the original version of “Versace” in 2013, but Drake managed to take the track to new heights when he hopped on the remix. He was aiming for heads back then, using the remix as an opportunity to put the game on notice. “Rap must be changing/ ‘Cause I’m at the top and ain’t no one on top of me/ Niggas be wanting a verse for a verse/ But man, that’s not a swap to me,” he raps with the commitment of an Atlanta water boy, adopting the trio's now-iconic triplet flow. Drake opens the remix, but the Migos don’t stay in the 6ix God’s shadow, as Offset, Quavo, and Takeoff each deliver standout verses of their own. The “Versace” remix is a tentpole moment of the 2010s because it helped catapult the careers of one of the best rap groups of all time, while showcasing just how deep Drake’s bag actually is. —Jordan Rose