Who is Drake
In the teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation, where he played the wheelchair-bound character Jimmy Brooks for seven years, Drake initially gained notoriety. He signed a deal with Lil Wayne's company Young Money Entertainment after leaving the program, and soon after that, he rose to become one of the biggest rappers on the planet. He is frequently in the news, whether it be for dating Rihanna or Jennifer Lopez, starting his record label, OVO Sound, or serving as the global ambassador for the NBA's Toronto Raptors. It's not shocking that Jay Z referred to him as the hip-hop equivalent of Kobe Bryant.
Early Years
Drake was born Aubrey Drake Graham on October 24, 1986, in Toronto, Canada, and has always been surrounded by music. Dennis Graham, his father, played drums for the late rock and roll icon Jerry Lee Lewis. Sly and the Family Stone's bassist was an uncle named Larry Graham. Drake claims that Sandi Graham, his mother, comes from a "very musical" family and that his grandmother once looked after Aretha Franklin. Drake hails from a diverse and distinctive racial and religious background. His mother is a white Canadian Jew, while his father is an African American Catholic. "At the end of the day, I consider myself a Black man because I'm more immersed in Black culture than anyone else," Drake says when asked about his identity. It's kind of a cool twist to be Jewish. It distinguishes me.
Drake was raised by his mother in Forest Hill, a wealthy and predominately Jewish area of Toronto, after his parents split when he was five years old. He went to a Jewish day school, celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13, and kept the Jewish High Holy Days with his mother. Drake remembers that his mother "always made Hanukkah fun." When I was younger, she used to prepare latkes and give interesting things. Drake claims that despite coming from a Jewish family, attending the largely white Forest Hill Collegiate Institute made him feel alone. Although he acknowledged that "nobody understood what it was like to be Black and Jewish," he noted that "being different from everyone else just made me a lot stronger."
One of Drake's classmates at Forest Hill was responsible for getting him his start in the entertainment business. Drake later recalled, "There was a boy in my class whose father was an agent. His dad would say, 'If there's someone in the class that makes you laugh, have them audition for me. He became my agent after the audition.
Drake soon after got a part in the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. This was in 2001. Drake portrayed Jimmy Brooks, also known as "Wheelchair Jimmy," a basketball star who is rendered permanently wheelchair-bound after being wounded by a classmate, in the dramatized lives of a group of students at Degrassi High School.
Drake, who only received his high school diploma in 2012, dropped out of school to focus on his acting career. He played the lead character on Degrassi for seven years (2001–2009), winning the Young Artist Award for outstanding ensemble in a TV series in 2002, among other awards. Drake was swiftly elevated to celebrity status in Canada as a result of the show, even though he remained largely unknown in the United States. "There are very few subtle Degrassi fans," he has said.
Music career
Drake started making an effort to enter the hip-hop scene while he was still featured on Degrassi. His debut mixtape, Room for Improvement, was published in 2006 and only sold a meager 6,000 copies. Following that, he released the 2007 mixtape Comeback Season under his own October's Very Own label (eventually abbreviated to OVO).This contained "Replacement Girl," Drake's debut single and music video, which was presented as the New Joint of the Day on BET's well-known hip-hop television program 106 & Park. The song's inclusion of Lil Wayne's verse from "Man of the Year," by Brisco and Flo Rida, was more noteworthy. Drake made the decision to retain Wayne's verses and hook while writing the remaining lyrics himself.
When the cast of Degrassi was recast in 2008, Drake's role was dropped. Drake was about to start looking for a day job because he had no reliable source of income and was still making just modest amounts of money as a musician. In his own words, "I was accepting the possibility that I might have to work at a restaurant or something just to keep things going." However, early in 2008, he got a call from Lil Wayne unexpectedly asking him to take a trip to Houston that evening to join his Carter III tour.
In February 2009, Drake released his third mixtape, So Far Gone, following a tour and many songs with Lil Wayne. It contained the catchy track "Best I Ever Had," which reached at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Wayne and Trey Songz's collaboration "Successful," which went gold, was included in Rolling Stone's list of the "25 Best Songs of 2009." Since then, Drake's constant stream of infectious, R&B-infused hip-hop has taken over the stations.
Following a bidding battle for his services, Drake signed a record deal with Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment in the middle of 2009.He had a rocky beginning when, in July of that same year, while on the America's Most Wanted Tour, he fell to the ground and tore his anterior cruciate ligament, necessitating surgery. But from that point forward, it would only be up.
'Grammy Awards and Thank Me Later
Drake's first complete studio album, Thank Me Later, which was released on June 15, 2010, debuted at No. 1 on both the American and Canadian album charts and was awarded platinum certification. His prior career as a teenage soap star and middle-class Jewish upbringing looked at odds with his new identity as the arrogant prince of hip-hop ("Last name ever, first name greatest," he boasts on "Forever").
Drake nevertheless made an effort to combine these contrasting phases of his life into a single character. He wore a diamond-crusted Chai on the cover of Vibe magazine in December 2009 as a hip-hop reference to his Jewish heritage. Additionally, he raps: "Who's Drake? Where is Jimmy in a wheelchair? The album contained contributions from Jay Z and Kanye West, therefore "rap royalty" had to be the response to the question "Who is Drake?".
Take Care, his second studio album, was released in November 2011 and featured the songs "Headlines," "Make Me Proud," and "The Motto." The album was widely praised and received numerous awards, including the 2013 Grammy for best rap album. Drake, the melancholy hustler with a conscience, is back drunk-dialing former girlfriends and lamenting the ones who got away, as Greg Kot's review in the Chicago Tribune aptly put it: "Drake, the melancholy hustler with a conscience, is back lamenting the ones who got away."
Drake's personal life experienced a few tough patches even as his profession was flourishing. His rivalry with fellow entertainer Chris Brown for the attention of singer Rihanna led to a violent outburst in a New York nightclub in the summer of 2012 that injured several bystanders. Drake and Brown both found themselves in legal trouble as a result of their behavior. Those who filed lawsuits against the performers included professional basketball player Tony Parker, a male model, and two ladies who were injured in the altercation. In a subsequent guest verse on Chief Keef's "I Don't Like" remix, Brown made reference to the incident ("One on one, what you scared, bruh?" he rapped).
Drake reached a settlement in an unrelated legal dispute about this time. Ericka Lee, a former flame, and he came to terms over her involvement in the song "Marvin's Room." Lee filed a lawsuit against Drake in 2012, claiming co-writing credit for the song. Rappin 4-Tay and Jimmy Smith's estate also filed lawsuits against him. His career has also been dotted with conflicts with other musicians, but they haven't stopped it. The verbal conflict with Tyga was one thing, but Drake also got into a fight with rapper Meek Mill over the latter's claim that they had written a song together while utilizing a ghostwriter. In a single week, Drake produced the diss tracks "Back to Back" and "Charged Up" that are specifically directed towards Mill.
Drake's personal difficulties never seem to derail him for very long. His battle for success was captured in the 2013 song "Started From the Bottom," which was featured on his critically praised 2013 album Nothing Was the Same. "I just wanted to make it known that I did work hard to get here and it wasn't just a fluke and it wasn't easy by any means," he told MTV News.
Drake followed up on two mixtapes he dropped in 2015, one of which featured Future, by releasing Views, his fourth studio album, in the spring of 2016. The album was an immediate hit, debuting at No. 1 and remaining there for 13 weeks that weren't consecutive. One of its top hits was the seductive "Hotline Bling," which helped the singer win Grammy awards for best rap song and best rap/sung performance in the early part of 2017 (and became the subject of numerous memes thanks to its iconic video, which was created in collaboration with the artist James Turrell). He criticized the Grammys for lumping him under the rap category after the program.
Drake thinks that his unique path to hip-hop popularity will continue to be a strength rather than a liability as his rap career develops. We're basically going with the storybook theme since, as he has remarked, "this whole thing is unusual at this point."
When Drake took up the top prize at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards in May, the "fairytale vibe" persisted. He won 13 accolades, breaking Adele's record for the most victories by an artist in a calendar year, including top artist, top male artist, top Billboard 100 album, top Billboard 200 artist, and top hot 100 artist.
'Scorpion'
Drake released two singles, "Nice For What" and "I'm Upset," ahead of the release of his fifth studio album, Scorpion, in June after beginning the year with the two-song EP Scary Hours. He also released the diss tune "Duppy Freestyle," in reaction to rapper Pusha-T's claim that he was using a ghostwriter for his lyrics.
Scorpion, which was released on June 29, did not let fans down. On "March 14," the artist confirmed the reports that he had given birth to a son, and on "Survival," he provided an explanation for why he had toned down his animosity for Pusha-T and Meek Mill. Jay-Z, Future, and allegedly previously unheard Michael Jackson songs were all contributors to the album, which also included the single.
Don't Matter to Me.
Over the course of its first 24 hours, Scorpion broke streaming records, with the Associated Press reporting totals of 170 million streams on Apple Music and an additional 132 million on Spotify. With his studio album, Drake became the first artist to surpass 1 billion streams in a single week as the pace picked up over the following few days.
For "God's Plan," which was featured on both Scorpion and Scary Hours, Drake went on to win the 2019 Grammy for Best Rap Song. However, the controversy surrounding his being cut off during his acceptance speech, in which he dismissed the significance of winning at the Grammys, partly overshadowed the achievement.
In an effort to put the past behind them, Chris Brown and Drake collaborated on the Top 5 single "No Guidance." The EP The Best in the World Pack, which included the singles "Omertà " and "Money in the Grave," and the compilation album Care Package, which had unheard tracks from earlier in the decade, were later published by him.
Drake collaborated with Future to release "Life is Good" in January 2020 ahead of the anticipated release of a new album. A few weeks later, he debuted a video fusing the songs "When To Say When" and "Chicago Freestyle" off that album. On May 1, the Dark Lane Demo Tapes album, which featured Brown, Giveon, Young Thug, and Playboi Carti as guests, was released.
cannabis business
Drake joined together with a well-known Canadian producer, Canopy Growth, to create and market herbal delights in Toronto through a new business named More Life Growth Co., it was reported in late 2019. The organization, according to a press release, is "centered around wellness, discovery, and overall personal growth with the hope of facilitating connections and shared experiences across the globe."
Personal life
Drake shares son Adonis, born in October 2017, with artist Sophie Brussaux.