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Drake · S6 E3
Know Yourself
'Running through the six with my woes.' Toronto slang goes global in one chorus
Spring 2015. A phrase nobody outside Toronto has ever heard starts showing up in every Instagram caption, every group chat, every party in every city on Earth. "Running through the six with my woes."
Rihanna feat. Drake, Work (2016). The biggest pop star in the world picks Drake for her lead single, and the video turns into a sweaty, dancehall-drenched two-hander that looks more like a date than a performance. By 2016, Drake isn't just Toronto's biggest export. He's everyone's first call.
Work, Rihanna feat. Drake (2016)
Boi-1da and several co-producers build the beat from a looping dancehall sample and a minimal drum pattern that refuses to rush. Rihanna sings most of the song in a patois-inflected delivery that blurs the words together on purpose, while Drake enters with a verse that's more sung than rapped, matching her energy rather than dominating it. Listen for how the two voices blend in the second half, trading lines like a conversation instead of separate performances.
The Six
Before Drake, nobody called Toronto "the six." The nickname comes from the city's 416 area code and its six pre-amalgamation boroughs. Drake didn't invent the term, but he made it impossible to say without thinking of him. "Know Yourself" turned local slang into global vocabulary.
“Running through the six with my woes. You know how that should go.”
— Drake, "Know Yourself," 2015
Woes
"Woes" wasn't slang Drake made up either. It's Toronto shorthand for close friends, your crew, the people you come up with. But when Drake rapped "running through the six with my woes" over a beat that builds from a whisper to a stadium roar, the word stopped belonging to Toronto. It belonged to everyone who ever rolled with a crew and felt untouchable.
TAP TO REVEAL: What does the beat switch in "Know Yourself" actually sample?
Dundas Square, Toronto
The commercial heart of downtown Toronto and one of the most recognizable intersections in the city. When Drake raps about "the six," this is the center of it.
Know Yourself: The Details
What does "the six" refer to in Drake's music?
6 God, Drake
From If You're Reading This It's Too Late. If "Know Yourself" is Drake representing Toronto to the world, "6 God" is Drake talking to Toronto directly. The title says it all: he's not just from the six, he's the six's chosen one. Three minutes of pure bravado, delivered with the confidence of someone who knows the whole city is watching.
6 God, Drake (2015)
Read the lyrics while you listen. "Pray to God, pray to 6 God." Drake turning his city into a religion.
The City's Rapper
Before "Know Yourself," Toronto was a great city with no rapper to call its own. After "Know Yourself," Toronto was Drake's city. The OVO owl showed up on the Raptors' warm-up gear, the CN Tower lit up in OVO gold, and every artist who came out of Toronto for the next decade would be measured against the guy who made "the six" mean something.
Drake owns the biggest song of the year and the city that raised him. But everybody has an opinion now, and nobody has an answer. Next: "Energy," the paranoia track, and Drake channeling his frustration into a warning.
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