Virginia Beach (song)

"Virginia Beach" is a song by Canadian rapper Drake, released on October 6, 2023 as the opening track from his eighth studio album For All the Dogs (2023). Produced by Harley Arsenault, with co-production from 40, it contains samples of the unreleased song "Wiseman" by Frank Ocean.

Background
On October 5, 2023, Drake released the tracklist of For All the Dogs. "Virginia Beach" was widely speculated to be a diss track aimed at his rival Pusha T, as it was named after his hometown, but this was disproved after the song was released.

Composition
Over the sample, the song finds Drake reflecting on a relationship with a woman as if talking to her. He accuses her of "drawin' conclusions like you got a Parsons degree or somethin'", which is a diss toward Barbadian singer Rihanna, who has an honorary degree from the Parsons School of Design and was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Drake from 2009 to 2016. In the first verse, Drake compares the woman in question to the titular city for the reason that she is "pretty but rough".

As for the musical style, Nadine Smith of The Independent commented the song "brings to mind the cloudy textures and hazy samples of his early work."

Critical reception
In a review of For All the Dogs, Louis Pavlakos of HipHopDX wrote, "Even opener 'Virginia Beach' sounds refreshed thanks to a lively flip of Frank Ocean's 'Wiseman' and a memorable chorus." Luke Morgan Britton of NME stated the song "brims with stream-of-conscious bars". Paul Attard of Slant Magazine criticized the song in regard to a particular line, writing "'Asked me if I coulda treated you better, but no,' he asks himself on the album's sweeping opener 'Virginia Beach,' and he rushes to that answer before he can even seriously consider the quandary before him. Thinking twice is reserved solely for wimps, apparently."