There’s something almost absurd about the way Drake keeps finding Lykke Li. Not in person—they don’t actually know each other. But through music, across nearly two decades, he keeps arriving at her door with a question. The first time was a casual email in 2008. This time it was a text.
According to Rolling Stone, the Swedish indie-pop artist’s minimalist production work on “Little Bit” ended up on Drake’s 2009 mixtape So Far Gone, helping catapult him into the stratosphere. Now, nearly 20 years later, Drake has interpolated her signature 2011 track “I Follow Rivers” on the new Iceman album, specifically on the track “Janis STFU,” which sees the rapper taking aim at gossip-mongers and internet critics.
When Rolling Stone spoke with Li about the development, she’d already taken it for a spin. “I think it’s potent,” she said. “It has that raw, revenge, hip-hop energy.” Like the first time around, she found out through an indirect route: a text from co-writer Rick Nowels. “I thought [Rick] was trolling me,” she recalls. “Then I got the email.”
When a Song Becomes Something Bigger Than Itself
The real story here isn’t about Drake’s sampling habits, though that’s interesting enough. It’s about what happens to certain songs when they escape their creator’s hands and develop their own momentum in the world.
“I Follow Rivers” has done exactly that. Released as part of Li’s 2011 album Wounded Rhymes, the track got a significant boost from Belgian DJ/producer The Magician’s popular dance remix. But its reach extends far beyond a single remix cycle. Covers, remixes, and mash-ups continue to proliferate across YouTube and social media with remarkable staying power—the kind of endurance that most artists spend their entire careers chasing and never achieve.
Li has made peace with this, and she’s clearly thought deeply about it. Speaking to Rolling Stone, she likened the phenomenon to “a scripture or a verse or a hymn.” More philosophically, she explained her broader view on music: “We are all just downloading something that somehow exists in God or the universe. With certain songs, there’s an alchemy or symmetry to them that allows them to have their own life in the world. And as a songwriter, that’s the greatest wish. I’m so grateful and blessed to have one of those songs that doesn’t even belong to me. It has a life of its own.”
That’s not false modesty or deflection. Her own two-year-old son recently sang “Deep sea, baby” back to her—a line from the track’s hook—despite never being played the song directly. Apparently a nanny in the park was playing it. The song had traveled to him through the ambient cultural landscape, the way songs once did before algorithmic curation took over.
The Curious Endurance of “I Follow Rivers”
There’s something almost defiant about a song like “I Follow Rivers” in 2026. In an era where music is increasingly compartmentalized into playlists and algorithm-driven feeds, here’s a track from 2011 that keeps resurfacing organically, decade after decade, generation after generation.
Li performed it at Coachella last month, delivering that same “Deep sea, baby” chorus to tens of thousands of people in a late-afternoon slot. The song maintains genuine cultural currency in a way that suggests something beyond nostalgia. It’s become a kind of modern standard.
What’s Next for Lykke Li
Meanwhile, Li’s own creative trajectory is shifting. She released The Afterparty this past May, her first album in four years. It’s rawer than her previous work, exploring spirituality, ego death, and the human psyche. There’s also speculation that it might be her last studio album, though she’s been cagier about that claim. What she has confirmed is her desire to move beyond music entirely.
“I don’t want to spend my life inside the algorithm,” she told Nylon recently. “How you spend your day is how you spend your life. So what do you want to do? I want to live on a remote island and meditate. I want to sail away.”
It’s a striking posture for someone whose song continues to sail through the cultural waters without her. One of the great ironies of Li’s career might be that her most enduring work is one she’s already released—a song that’s found audiences she never played for, across formats she never imagined, through channels she actively wants to distance herself from.
The question isn’t whether Drake will sample her again in another decade or so. The real question is whether “I Follow Rivers” will still be finding new listeners by then, long after both artists have moved on to whatever comes next.
