Drake teases a Choosin Texas remix with the country singer Ella Langley

Drake spent part of a weekend club set in his home city of Toronto behind the DJ table, and what came out of the speakers sounded like his own remix of Choosin Texas. The song belongs to Ella Langley, whose run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 has been the story of the American singles chart this year.

The tease did not arrive out of nowhere. Drake had already played the track during a DJ set in Houston and described Langley's writing as a goated pen. Days before the Toronto set he turned up at one of her Dandelion Tour shows in Arkansas, was filmed singing along, and met her backstage afterwards.

What he played is a long way from the original. Where Langley's version is brisk and plainly country, the preview drifted toward a slower R&B tempo with the vocal reworked around it. Whether it is a licensed remix or something Drake made for his own amusement is unclear, since no release has been announced and neither camp has said anything on the record.

Reaction online was not warm. Video of the set was circulated by the account big_business, and the comment sections filled with people telling Drake to leave the song alone, with a few pointing out that Langley had held the number one spot he had been chasing.

A country crossover has been circling Drake for a while. He put out three albums at once earlier this year, saw Janice STFU reach the top of the Hot 100, and promoted ICEMAN by parking a giant block of ice in downtown Toronto. Moving from hip-hop toward country would be a sharper turn than any of that, and on this evidence the audience is not sold yet.

Langley, for her part, has had a year that needs no help. Her album Dandelion arrived in April, and she has been holding the top of MusicRow's songwriter chart for weeks. Drake, meanwhile, has been back in the studio while ICEMAN sits on the charts.