Another Drake music video means another opportunity for the artist to flex and show off his most extravagant toys.
And in the just-released vid for the new single “What’s Next”, nothing catches the eye quite like the rapper’s Patek Philippe Nautilus, customized by designer Virgil Abloh. Toronto’s favorite son has never hidden his love for outlandish timepieces, but this watch, which is covered in emeralds, takes things up a notch or two.
Drake and his Virgil Abloh-customized Patek Philippe Nautilus in the “What’s Next” video YouTube
Drake mentions the customized watch in the very first line of the opening verse—“Yeah, I got one, Virgil got one and that there is the only two”—but it’s not until halfway through the three-and-a-half-minute tour of snow-covered Toronto that it makes its first appearance. As he tears his way through the second ferocious verse while riding the Toronto subway, you see the watch slip out from under the right sleeve of his jacket multiple times. (The jacket, we should note, is another Abloh design, produced in his role as artistic director of menswear for Louis Vuitton.) And even though it’s forced to share screen time with Drake, a Rolls-Royce with a custom Chrome Hearts interior and a gorgeous Mercedes-Benz SLR Maybach, the watch is the clear star.
It’s easy to see why, too. The model is a Ref. 5726, a hugely desirable annual calendar watch with a moonphase complication that was added to Patek Philippe’s Nautilus family in 2019. Abloh designed the over-the-top customization and brought it to life with the jewelry house MAD Paris. One of just two in the world, the timepiece was completely disassembled, cleaned and put in a special vacuum chamber to be coated in diamond-like carbon before being covered in emeralds, according to a GQ article from April 2019. We’re not sure how many stones were added to the watch, but from the looks of things, it’s a lot.
This isn’t the first time Drake has talked about his beloved “Virgil,” the magazine points out. The rapper also shouted out the watch during his feature on Future’s “Life is Good,” rapping “Virgil got a Patek on my wrist goin’ nuts” in the chorus and “Virgil got the Patek on my wrist doin’ front flips” on his verse. He really likes this watch an awful lot, if you couldn’t tell.
