How a Canadian highway became Twitter BFFs with rapper Black Thought
They invite each other to picnics, talk about the weather and argue about cowboy hats
He's a Grammy Award-winning musician who appears weekly as part of the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
She is a highway in northern British Columbia.
Since November 2015, Nicole Davies — using the @myAlaskaHiWay Twitter account — has been developing an unlikely online friendship with Tariq Trotter, better known as the rapper Black Thought of the band The Roots.
The two invite each other to picnics, talk about the weather and — most recently — discussed whether or not Trotter should wear a cowboy hat.
"It's fun," said Davies of the back-and-forth banter she exchanges with Trotter. "He reaches a completely [different] demographic than we would... so now people are probably thinking, 'where is this place?"
Davies is the social media community manager for Tourism Dawson Creek, charged with drumming up publicity for the northeastern British Columbia city of about 11,000 people.
The @myAlaskaHiWay handle is a reference to Dawson Creek's Mile 0 position on the Alaska Highway, a stretch of road constructed during World War II connecting British Columbia to Alaska and a major tourist draw to the area.
It's perhaps not the most obvious account for Trotter to follow — he's a Philadelphia-raised musician who regularly rubs shoulders with some of the world's biggest stars.
Yet Trotter has become an avid booster of Davies' messages, adding emojis and messages of support to everything from the Dawson Creek's Choral Society's production of Alice in Wonderland to the volleyball club's golf tournament.
The relationship started when Davies shared her surprise at getting a different famous follower, actor Taye Diggs.
"I wrote and tweeted out something along the lines of, 'Taye Diggs is following us, I feel a little cooler,'" Davies recalled. "Then he, Black Thought/Tariq tweeted back saying, 'you know, it's not really him.'"
From there, a short online exchange resulted in the rapper following the @myAlaskaHiWay account.
Though Davies admits her bosses don't fully understand the unusual and often humourous online relationship she has with Trotter, it has become one of the perks of her job.
"I couldn't be more pleased," she said.
Explore a timeline of the banter between Black Thought and Davies by clicking on the text labeled: How a Canadian highway became Twitter BFFs with rapper Black Thought.