How many times have you seen a girl’s Instagram caption saying, “Running through the six with my woes”? Probably far too many. But the real question here is, what the heck is Drake talking about when he says “woe”? What even is a woe? In the hook for his song “Know Yourself” Drake’s use of the word “woe” carries a second meaning: working on excellence.In an interview with Devontée, a Toronto rapper, producer, and loose OVO Sound affiliate, from Noisey, he says:
“Woe is my crew. It stands for working on excellence. It’s just my whole brand and my whole movement and my way of life for everyone. I want everyone to work on excellence. So all my friends are my woes and I feel anybody working on excellence in life is woe in life as well.”
Pretty interesting, right? I found this kind of motivating -- that everyone should be working on making themselves better people, who give their all in everything that they do. The cool thing about this is that a lot of times, in order to improve yourself, you need the help and support of the people around you. Things can get rough or exhausting on our own if we beat ourselves up too much, but if we surround ourselves with people who want us to succeed, achieving excellence isn’t as hard as we think. While I’m a big believer that sometimes you just need to focus on yourself and what is best for you, it’s important to remember that the people around you have helped shape you into who you are, and you can’t forget the ones who have put you before themselves.
After finally learning about what Drake means by “woe,” I felt like I have always been working on excellence and will never stop. Why strive for less than excellence if you know you can be excellent? This year, I will be entering my third year of college, getting into my major classes, looking for internships, and getting more involved on campus. I want to do all these things to the best of my ability, and with the support of my friends and family, or my “crew,” I know I will be able to.
Sometimes knowing the right people, being in the right place at the right time, and taking chances are the ways we work on excellence. Think about what you believe in, what you stand for, the things you want to do in your life. What can you do to keep working on excellence? It’s hard to pinpoint any particular answer; it lies beneath what we know and we have to dig beneath the surface to find it.
So if maybe later on this year you happen to be running through the six with your woes, “you’ll know how that should go.” Keep making yourself and the people around you better because you’ll accomplish more together than you will alone. It’s easy to forget to give credit to those in your life that deserve it and have helped you along the way, so take a step back and let them know how much you value them and that you love working on excellence together. There’s no "I" in "team" and there isn’t one in "woe" either!
No more “woe is me.” Woe is us, and we’re working on excellence.
