Drake donates $100K to programme aimed at bailing out protesters arrested by police

Drake showed solidarity with protesters across US when he donated to the National Bail Out. The 33-year-old rap superstar shared a receipt for his $100,000 donation to the charity in his Instagram Stories after the songwriter Mustafa the Poet urged him to exceed his own contribution. The donation came as major cities across the United States have experienced massive protests inspired by the death of George Floyd. Drake initially re-posted a receipt for Mustafa’s $400 donation to the National Bail Out fund. ‘My Toronto Kings,’ he wrote, while tagging Drake and his fellow Canadian The Weeknd. ‘Swipe up and match my donation but add 3 zeros! Let’s help reunite black families,’ Mustafa wrote. Drake seemed to be on the same page and wrote, ‘Say less brother,’ meaning ‘say no more.’ He followed the post with his own donation receipt for $100,000, though he didn’t do the $400,000 as Mustafa had initially suggested.

The In My Feelings rapper also included a check mark and a red rose emoji, which is a common symbol for the Democratic Socialists of America, though Drake hasn’t previously mentioned being a supporter of the group. The donation was so large it triggered Drake’s fraud alert to pop up. They just called fraud on my card lol,’ Drake said in a text message to Mustafa, who posted the exchange onto Twitter. ‘Trying to call them right now.’ ‘I donated 100k,’ he added. ‘They were like nah.’ Bailout funds have cropped up across the country to help arrested protesters get out of jail, where their risk of contracting the coronavirus is significantly increased.

Drake’s donation comes days after 46-year-old George Floyd died on May 25. He was killed when a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes, including two minutes beyond when he stopped breathing and became unresponsive. So far, the four officers involved in the arrest have all been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department, and Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.