
Drake is no stranger to peculiar album artwork (just look at the Certified Lover Boy cover), but the imagery for his new collab album with 21 Savage, Her Loss, might be his most unique yet. The cover, shot by Houston-based photographer Paris Aden, features a close-up shot of a young woman grilling the camera with jewelry in her mouth and colorful eyelashes. Drake and 21 shared the image without any context, other than describing the image as the “front cover” of Her Loss. The shot immediately confused fans, with many asking who the mystery woman is and why she’s on the cover.
We immediately started investigating online to find answers. Fortunately, we stumbled on some bread crumbs that led us to answers about who the mysterious woman is: Qui Yasuka, aka Suki Baby, a nail stylist and professional adult dancer based in Houston. Suki revealed a lot about herself on Gulniyal’s gtalks! podcast about a year ago when talking about her personal interests, which left some clues about why Drake and 21 wanted her to be on the album cover. We also got in touch with the photographer for some more information about how this all came together.
Here’s everything we know about the woman on Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss album cover.
Suki Baby is currently working as an adult dancer in Houston, Texas. During her gtalks! podcast interview, she reveals she also has her own nail business and first started doing nails when she was in high school. Suki also has a deep interest in grills and teeth jewelry, explaining that she even has books on teeth anatomy so she can better understand how the human mouth works and how grills can be shaped. She also sells prints of photos she takes.
Suki, born Quiana Yasuka, is a Japanese, Black, and Cherokee nail artist and professional adult dancer. She was born in North Carolina and spent her younger years in Japan (Japanese is her first language) before moving to Houston. She moved back to America for good when she was in high school because she had to deal with bullying in Japan—she was the only Black and Japanese student at her school—but her mother would defend her.
The cover photo of Suki is about three years old. Photographer Paris Aden tells Complex that the OVO camp reached out to her randomly and asked to use the shot for the album cover. “Drake just saw the photo I guess, and they asked if they could use it for the album,” Aden explains over the phone. “I shot that shit a long time ago. It was her profile pic and he probably fell in love with what he seen.”
But how and why did Drake choose this specific photo? At this point, we can only guess. Drake has a well-documented love for Houston, so it isn’t a huge surprise that he would be drawn to an image of a woman from the area. Or, perhaps more likely, Drake just saw her profile photo on IG, thought it looked cool, and decided to use it for their cover. Everything about the rollout for Her Loss has been a spoof of a normal album rollout so far, so it’s only fitting that they’d choose a head-turning image and catch people off guard.
UPDATE [12:10 a.m., November 4]: According to a new Instagram post from Lil Yachty, he is the one who found the image and chose it for the cover. “I Chose This Cover Because This Photo Is So Raw… So Authentic.. Not Fabricated.. Suki Can And Will Only Be Suki,” he wrote. “MY BROTHRRR @aristatalovich BROUGHT IT TO LIFE…. HER LOSS 🦉🗡️ FUCK WHO AINT WIT US.”
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