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Drake in disguise (background) and how he appears normally. Did portraying a white person play to racial stereotyping?

Drake in disguise (background) and how he appears normally. Did portraying a white person play to racial stereotyping?

Drake, the rapper, was disguised as a white person for Jimmy Kimmel’s “Lie Witness News. He appears to have had his skin lightened in addition to wearing a beard and a wig of straight brown hair. He fooled everyone, but white-face, again?

Last month Nick Cannon, husband of diva Mariah Carey, dressed up as a white man to promote his new album White People Party Music.

Like Drake, Cannon conducted interviews in disguise and fooled everyone. But his shtick outraged some because of the racist characterization and its connection to the racist connotations of white entertainers in black-face.

But Canon sees a difference. “I don’t know what that is,” he said about the expression “white-face” on “Good Morning America” last week. “I was doing a character impression. Blackface is about oppression.”

After donning the disguise, Drake, real name Aubrey Drake Graham, asked passersby to assess how he did as host of the ESPYs. Actually, the show won’t air until July.

Drake also asked, in the third person, what people thought about him, and made up some fictitious scenarios to provoked a response. One had him peeing in a Baby Gap store.

The video is hilarious, one interviewee called him a “chicken head,” but is it appropriate? Or does he deserve a pass? Let us know your thoughts and follow TheImproper on Twitter for the latest television news.