Lykke Li Reflects on Drake Interpolating ‘I Follow Rivers’ on ‘Iceman’: ‘I Was Missing Him’
Drizzy previously sampled the Swedish singer on So Far Gone.
Lykke Li performs at the Outdoor Theatre during the 2026 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 10, 2026 in Indio, California.
Drake sampled Lykke Li’s “Little Bit” on 2009’s So Far Gone, and now he’s interpolated the Swedish singer again, this time her breakthrough hit “I Follow Rivers” nearly two decades later on his new Iceman album, which arrived on Friday.
Rolling Stone caught up with Lykke Li over the weekend to get her thoughts on Drizzy circling back to shrewdly interpolate her 2011 EDM-infused bop on the spiteful “Janice STFU.” “I think it’s potent. It has that raw, revenge, hip-hop energy,” she said of the Iceman standout.
Li thought she was being trolled by co-writer Rick Nowels, who informed her via email that Drake wanted to use “I Follow Rivers” on Iceman. Most of all, the 40-year-old appreciates all of the different lives that the global anthem — which exploded following a The Magician remix — has taken on over the years.
“I mean, it is the most mysterious, incredible gift of my career because it’s had so many lives and different iterations,” she added. “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.”
Fittingly, it’s almost as if Lykke Li manifested reconnecting with the 6 God, as the singer admitted she’d been “craving” Drake and bumping classic tracks like “Marvin’s Room” recently.
“Strangely enough, I’ve been really craving Drake and have actually been listening to ‘Marvins Room’ lately,'” she revealed, name-checking the 2011 Take Care song. “The old Drake was such an era. When you’d walk into a room and they’d play ‘Hotline Bling.’ … So yeah, I was missing him.”
Lykke Li performed at Coachella in April and dropped her The Afterparty project earlier in May. As for the OVO boss, Drizzy returned with Iceman on May 15 alongside Habibti and Maid of Honour to complete a trifecta of LPs.
Listen to “I Follow Rivers” and “Janice STFU” below.
