Arts and Entertainment

Brant Garratt and Duke Street Turnaround perform for Drake on livestream

May 22, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Brant Garratt began the story like this: “April 10: that weekend on Saturday, there was a message on Instagram from this person who was part of Drake’s production team – out of the blue – said, ‘We’re looking for a Bluegrass band to play on a livestream with Drake and Adin Ross. You’re a livestreamer Duke Street Turnaround.

“Can you do it?

“Let me know.” 

Not surprisingly, they thought it was a scam but just in case, “We said, ‘yes – send us more information,’”

The message went on, asking them to “play us a couple of tunes” and when Garratt and the band had played, he reported, “They really loved us and we were just what they wanted.”

They were sent a tech rider: all the tech and instruments and where it was, namely at Drake’s mansion on the Bridle Path [in Toronto].

This is the real deal, the Duke Street Turnaround Band realized. 

“There was another band who were dressed up. They were the Country Boys but that’s not who they were. When they played, they did really well,” Garratt remarked.

They were going to play at Drake’s home and they had no idea what to expect. To introduce the members of Garratt’s band who played at Drake’s, they are: John Kervin on banjo; Matt Savard playing bass; and Jared Higgins on the mandolin.

Let us set the stage for this extraordinary night: the four of them have arrived at Drake’s mansion with their instruments and whatever else was required. Drake’s production team was there and everything was waiting for Adin Ross, an internet celebrity, with whom Drake was ready to gamble online. 

At first, the production team wanted Duke Street to play a Drake cover. They did not entirely know one but everyone was happy with the band’s traditional Bluegrass.

One of the rules of the night was “when Drake goes out of the room to go the bathroom, you play and then when he comes back, you stop.”

“Drake came and shook my hand,” said Garratt. “We were waiting for Ross’s airplane flying in from LA – we actually started after midnight.”

The band members drove themselves to Drake’s mansion. Garratt had to laugh when he described that to the Citizen: “I drove myself to the house; I have an old Ford Ranger. Driving up to the giant black gate, there was nobody around. The door slowly swings open to this huge stone driveway. Security comes and I tell him I’m part of the Bluegrass band. The house is called The Embassy. And there was my old truck parked outside Drake’s mansion.”

Here is the picture: within a wing of the house is an indoor basketball court, which Drake had converted into a huge sound stage. The band met the production team, who had 24 hours to get it all together. There were green screens ready, displaying scenes of fields, blue skies and white clouds. Added to the Bluegrass band as entertainment, Strong Girl, in a white bikini came on to lift weights and crush watermelons, an alpaca and a donkey were there as well. Other people were there as part of the fun.

Said Garratt, “Drake and this guy – they do gambling through Stake [an online platform] – all sorts of things were going on. Drake and Adin are gambling with others online gambling – giving money away and prizes. They are the house and nobody really knew what would happen next.

“We ended up being called to play. ‘Let’s get some music’ and Drake would say ‘let’s get the boys.’ We played about six tunes; he shouted us out – ‘You guys are fantastic!’

“By the end, we were playing – we have this tune ‘Free Born Man’ – it’s pretty big. We played Free Born Man for the team just to close. I was singing and he grabbed some of the words and he was saying them – It was so out there – we were totally into it – soaking up every moment.

“Everybody really loved us.” 

They played until around 3 a.m. but they didn’t get tired. When their own schedules were so out of the way; it began to feel almost normal.

Duke Street is a band of six. They had to find a substitute for Bill, their mandolin player and took on Jared Higgins for this gig.

The Instagram invite came at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday evening and they had to be at Drake’s at 6 p.m. the following night.

It was crazy being in his house, was Garratt’s comment. The place is huge, he told the Citizen, twelve-foot ceilings and mega everything. Drake hung out with them. There were cameras, a sound stage in the middle of the court; big green screen backgrounds. The wood panelling was replaced by acoustics panels; cameras were set focused on them when they were in the streaming service to Twitch and Telegram-Kick with over a million people watching.

What Garratt thought was a cool thing to mention is, people wouldn’t expect it from a Bluegrass Band and it did get a lot of exposure – the clips that they posted of them playing was on a free domain.

Garratt believes the exposure will help them in the future, saying, “It may be crazy but it has to have been the best – pretty high octane – we can do that too, improvisers – a skill set that is translatable.”

The band members have other things going on; if somebody can’t make it, they have other people to call in but the core of Duke Street remains the same. It was formed during the pandemic. They had met at Humber College when he had just got into Bluegrass.

Bill took up Mandolin and also took up the banjo together with John.

“They’ve been playing for four years but they play as though they’ve played all their lives,” was Garratt’s praise.

“Everyone was out of their element.” he told the Citizen. “That was the vibe; I think it worked well. It was a night of good entertainers.”

You can see the whole stream on YouTube at youtube.com/watch?v=zO7xSk-Bxrc.

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