Rating Drake's 'SNL' Performance In "Trying Too Hard Smile Emojis"

America’s half-black, half-Jewish, half-rapping, half-singing, all-Canadian zeitgeist made his first of what will probably be many appearances as the host of Saturday Night Live this weekend. After assuredly telling skeptics in his circle to “THANK [HIM] LATER”, Drake “[TOOK] CARE” of business. “NOTHING [WILL BE] THE SAME” for Aubrey Graham after a showcase of charisma and comic timing that could make him the next leading man. But with potential Hollywood stardom on the horizon, let’s just hope his music career isn’t “SO FAR GONE”!

Here’s how his performances went down, rated one to five in “trying too hard smile emojis”:

From the jump, it was clear that Drake playing another character is inherently funny. Even though Drake’s twitchy Alex Rodriguez lacked the creepy focus that makes A-Rod so weird and unlikeable, watching him give the sketch 100% sold the bit. It also revealed that Drake’s eyes are weirdly far apart.

Drake’s monologue alone was enough to win anyone’s Mom’s heart, but the Bar Mitzvah was a watershed moment in American entertainment. It was an informed, loving send-up of Blacks and Jews, done through rap without the rapping being any part of the joke. It was the sketch Mel Brooks never quite figured out how to write.

(Bonus points: Drake’s uncle Larry in the sketch is a real person—he invented slap bass!)

Drizzy as Weezy was great! Drizzy as Jay-Z wasn’t. It was about as bad as Jay Pharoah’s Jay-Z impression, which basically consists of yelling “Hov!” and doing the Jay-Z breathy laugh. (Rick Ross the Teletubby, B’Lossom and Sway’s hat won the day anyways.)

Do regular Saturday Night Live viewers know who Katt Williams is? Who are regular Saturday Night Live viewers anyways? Drake’s impression was ehhh but the line “I’m Katt Williams, I haven’t been around someone who wasn’t high on pot in 15 years” is classic.

(Your regular reminder of the time Katt Williams gave DMX’s dog a line of coke and it bit Yung Joc.)

The song was garbage but it was all worth it to see Drake in a wizard costume yelling “Elven Death Potion”.

Half-Black Ned Flanders? Half-Black Ned Flanders.

Yo really? This was awkward as hell. SNL has a pretty good track record with live adaptations of rap songs (and if anyone is holding a copy of Missy Elliot’s performance in 1998, please holler!). Why is Drizzy out on his own lookin more lonely than usual, rapping to himself in a darkroom? The only way he could have saved this performance is if it ended with him developing a picture of Soulja Boy.

Drake becomes Dalton, donning limited edition Steve Irwin x OVO shorts and really getting into his dork flow. The real star of the bit was my new girlfriend Nasim Pedrad, playing the scared but excited foreign tourist with rice on deck. Just duck, Rahat!

On a serious note, some people were offended at the idea that “people that don’t speak English are funny” and the part where she bows down to the statue was weird. But I never felt like the jokes were at her expense and Dalton’s patience and diplomacy were part of the charm. (But I’m not Middle Eastern so what I think is beside the point.)

Clearly we’re into garbage time here. Pass.

The red light becomes a blue light and Drake straight up croons “Hold On”. This shit looked like something out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Then Jhene Aiko came out so they could stare deeply into each other’s eyes and perform the most forgettable song on “NWTS”.

But I’m mostly just mad he didn’t bring out Migos and do “Versace”.

His name was “Trey Shaeer-Wood” and that joke took me like three viewings to get. Also: “calculators for women” – TOO REAL.

And we end with the most Drake moment of the night. After bidding the audience adieu, Drake turns to give his musical co-host a hug and whiffs it, finding Jhene already mid-hug with some other cast members. Granted, Drake’s first hug went to the color-barrier-breaking Sasheer Zamata who debuted on Saturday. But Jhene wasn’t having it and Drake has to waddle after the woman he was fingerbanging with his eyes on national TV mere minutes ago.

Nah but really, Drake was great. He was consistantly funny and when he wasn’t, it was mostly the fault of bad material. I guess we already knew he could act but I don’t know what kind of market penetration Degrassi has in America. Now we have a little more proof!

Skinny Friedman has never hosted SNL. He's on Twitter — @skinny412