Drake is one of the most successful rappers in hip-hop history. He began his career by releasing mixtapes. A few years later, an ordinary Canadian guy became a rap idol. Drake collected several prestigious awards and entered the top of the most influential musicians in the world.
Childhood and youth
On October 24, 1986, in Toronto, Canada, Aubrey Drake Graham was born into the family of African American Dennis Graham and Jewish woman Sandra Chef. The boy inherited a passion for music from his father – he was a drummer in the team of one of the founders of rock and roll Jerry Lee Lewis. Mother worked as an English teacher.
Aubrey Drake’s father was engaged in his creative education, while his mother was engaged in his religious education. In a Jewish and Catholic family, Drake was raised according to the Mosaic Law. He attended a Jewish day school and had a bar mitzvah ceremony.
When Aubrey was 5 years old, his parents divorced. He stayed with his mom in Toronto, while his father returned to Memphis, Tennessee. There he spent several years in prison for drug trafficking. Due to legal and financial restrictions imposed on Dennis by the arrest, he did not see his son until Drake was 21 years old. Until the 6th grade, Aubrey and Sandra lived in a working-class neighborhood in Toronto, in 2000 they moved to the wealthy Forest Hill area. At a young age, the rapper played in the youth hockey team “Weston Red Wings”.
When Drake was attending Forest Hill Collegiate Institute High School, he developed a passion for the arts. Due to his racial and religious background, Aubrey was often the target of ridicule and bullying by his classmates. So he had to go to Vaughan Road Academy. Continuous harassment and an intense acting career forced Aubrey to drop out of school.
Music
Young Aubrey began his creative career as an actor. When the Canadian turned 15, a school friend introduced him to his father, who was an agent. He arranged for the young man to audition for the series “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” Aubrey was cast in the role of Jimmy Brooks, an unreleased basketball star.
Acting became for Drake not a way to realize his ambitions, but a necessity: Sandra became seriously ill and could not take care of her son. The only income that the Graham family had was Canadian television. Aubrey starred in Degrassi: The Next Generation until 2007, appearing in a total of 145 episodes.
Jay Z and hip-hop duo Clipse inspired Drake for creating his debut mixtape “Room for Improvement” (2006). It includes 17 original tracks and 5 remixes. American rappers Trey Songz and Lupe Fiasco took part in the recording. The disc sold 6,000 copies.
A year later, the second mixtape “Comeback Season” entered the discography of the aspiring singer. It included Kanye West’s “Barry Bonds” and Lil Wayne’s “Person of the Year” track. The song “Replacement Girl” was the first one that appeared on television.
The third mixtape “So Far Gone” (2009) brought the musician popularity thanks to the songs “Best I Ever Had” and “Successful” – both of which received a gold certificate from the RIAA.
At that moment, a real war began for Drake. After all, the labels offered incredible conditions, just to lure the aspiring star. In June 2009, the rapper signed a contract with Young Money Entertainment. “Thank Me Later”, their first album together, came out exactly one year later and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. 447,000 copies were sold in just one week. The second album “Take Care” (2011) accomplished the same success. For this album, Drake received his first Grammy.
The third album “Nothing Was the Same” (2013) was not inferior in popularity to Drake’s previous albums. It peaked at # 1 on the US Billboard 200. A tour in support of this album – “Would You Like a Tour?” – brought Drake $ 46 million.
The record Views (2016) made the musician loved and popular in Great Britain, Germany, France, Australia, and other countries. One Dance became the most watched track in Spotify history as of October 2016 with over 882 million streams. Due to the song “Hotline Bling” Drake won his second and third Grammy awards. Drake’s new album, Scorpion (2018), includes 25 tracks, including In My Feelings, God’s Plan, and Don’t Matter to Me, totaling 90 minutes.
Personal life
There are many broken women’s hearts on Drake’s account, and one of them is Madonna. Madonna, in an interview with Us Weekly, admitted that she would like to go on a date with the rapper. At the 2015 Coachella festival, during a joint performance, the queen of pop culture first kissed Drake. In response, Drake showed conflicting emotions: he grimaced and wiped his lips. Later on Instagram, the artist wrote:
“Everyone misinterpreted my shock! I had a chance to kiss the queen herself and I will remember this for the rest of my life. Thank you, Madonna!”
Drake’s loudest romance is with Rihanna, with whom the artist, according to personal confessions, has been in love since he was 22. The relationship between them began in 2009 after the musicians accidentally collided in a bowling alley. Drake’s song “Fireworks” is dedicated to the events which took place that evening. In the videos for Rihanna’s song “What’s My Name” (2010) and Drake’s song “Take Care” (2012), the singers played lovers. Even romantic photos and hot performances did not convince them to confess their personal life together.
Finally, Drake publicly vowed eternal love for Rihanna at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. They even got paired shark tattoos. But after a while, Drake and Rihanna broke up.
On October 11, 2017, Drake had a son, Adonis, with former French pornographic actress Sophie Brusseau. Rumors about the birth of illegitimate children of a Canadian often appear in the press.
