Drake took the musical world by storm on May 15th when he dropped three albums simultaneously: “ICEMAN,” “HABIBTI,” and “MAID OF HONOUR.” He scored 42 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, while the three albums debuted at Nos. 1, 2, and 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, “where he becomes the first artist to monopolize the top three simultaneously in the chart’s 70-year history,” Billboard shares. While some of the tracks have cooled off, his song “Janice STFU” has proven its staying power at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It has a hypnotic chorus that interpolates Swedish singer Lykke Li‘s “I Follow Rivers.”
Sampling vs. Interpolation in “Janice STFU”
It’s not the first time Drake has reconfigured Li’s music for his own purposes. He also used a sample of her song “Little Bit” on his 2009 mixtape, “So Far Gone.” The difference in the two cases is interpolation versus sampling. Sampling is when a recorded piece of music is used.
“An interpolation involves taking part of an existing musical work (as opposed to a sound recording) and incorporating it into a new work,” the United States Copyright Office explains. “While sometimes confused with sampling a sound recording, interpolating a musical work is different because it does not involve using any of the actual audio sounds contained in a preexisting recording. Instead, new audio is recorded.”
In the case of “Janice STFU,” Drake interpolates the melody of the “I Follow Rivers” chorus, slows it down, and adds his own lyrics.
Compare the two versions with the music videos for each song:
Li released “I Follow Rivers” in 2011 on her album “Wounded Rhymes.” It has since been extensively covered and remixed, notably by Belgian DJ/producer The Magician. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she recognized the song’s power.
“I mean, it is the most mysterious, incredible gift of my career because it’s had so many lives and different iterations,” she said. “It goes back to like my feeling about what music is — that we are all just downloading something that somehow exists in God or the universe. … With certain songs, there’s an alchemy or symmetry to them that allows them to have their own life in the world. And as a songwriter, that’s the greatest wish. I’m so grateful and blessed to have one of those songs that doesn’t even belong to me. It has a life of its own.”
The Chorus Progressions Behind “I Follow Rivers” and “Janice STFU”
The original version of “I Follow Rivers” alternates between Dmin and Amin chords during the verse. The chorus then switches to a new progression of F-Dmin-Amin-C.
Its melody begins on A and slowly floats down the scale, creating a drifting feeling that matches its reverb-laden dance beat. The descending pattern also creates a sense of motion in LI’s lyrics of “I follow you, deep sea baby.”
It’s a far cry from Drake’s “Janice STFU” lyrics, which Rolling Stone calls a “blistering indictment of internet gossip.” Drake’s version transposes the melody down a half step from the original D minor to C# minor, and the chorus is harmonized with C#min-G#min-E-G#min. Framing its downward pull in a minor key with a darker arrangement reinforces the discontent in his words. Even Li feels that shift, telling Rolling Stone that “I think it’s potent. It has that raw, revenge, hip-hop energy.”
