Whether you are an avid enjoyer of hip-hop music or a rap-hater, you know the name Drake.
Aubrey Graham, or as we know him “Drake,” grew up in Toronto Canada and is arguably the most famous rapper ever, but his rise to fame was anything but ordinary. He started off as a TV actor in the show Degrassi: The Next generation playing Jimmy Brooks, a popular student whose life was turned upside down after a tragic school shooting. Behind the scenes of this show, Drake started to produce and release mixtapes such as So Far Gone in 2009 which was the necessary spark for his rap career.
His music was great, and people took notice of it, most notably, the 5-time Grammy award winning rapper, Lil Wayne. Upon hearing Drake’s music, Wayne immediately signed him to his record label Young Money Entertainment which allowed Drake to learn from some of the biggest rappers in the world like Tyga and Nicki Minaj. During this time, he dropped Thank Me Later in 2010 and Take Care in 2011 which are my personal favorite albums. They stand out in how vulnerability and versatility are expressed in a way no rapper was doing then.
The success did not stop here though. He stayed on a consistent track of releasing albums which always outdid other rappers with my two favorites being Views (2016) and Scorpion (2018). Views gives a unique blend of sounds from local Toronto hip-hop, and those from all over the world which is shown with the hit song, “One Dance.” Here, a beat heavily influenced by the Afrobeat genre, popular in West Africa, is combined with Toronto-style rap music in an intricate way that was innovative for the time. Needless to say, people loved this song and were constantly listening to it. So much so that it became the 1st ever song to ever reach 1 million streams on Spotify. Then with Scorpion, he put his dominance on pop culture with many hit songs such as “In My Feelings” which had millions across the world participating in the viral dance trend to this song.
All in all, his career of consistency, depth, and impact on pop-culture has been unmatched by any artist over the past decade and a half. And with his release of three albums, Iceman, Habibti, and Maid of Honor, on May 15, he once again has the whole world listening for another musical masterpiece.
