If I had told you that today’s song was “One Dance” by Aubrey Graham, you could have been forgiven if you replied by saying, “Who?”. However, if I supplied today’s singer’s middle name, which is Drake, then I am sure that you would know who I was talking about. Drake, as he is known around the world, is one of the world’s most successful musical talents in terms of record sales, awards, financial worth and technical innovations. As of the date that I type these words, Drake has record sales/downloads approaching the 170 million mark, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He has had 13 #1 hit songs on the Billboard Pop charts and 30+ on the Hip Hop charts. Drake holds a variety of chart-related records, such as having the most songs in the Top 40 at one time and having albums in the Hot 100 chart for the most consecutive weeks, along with having multiple albums charting simultaneously. Drake runs his own record label and his own clothing line, which is simply known as O.V.O. or October’s Very Own. But, as much as anything, Drake has come to be known as a civic booster for his home city of Toronto, which, because of him, is known throughout much of the world simply as The 6ix. Drake is easily Canada’s most successful musical act today in terms of cultural impact and social visibility and clout. That he has accomplished so much in his relatively young life (Drake is only in his mid-30s) is due in large part to his sense of personal determination, his willingness to enter into creative, as well as business partnerships with equally skilled professionals, the creativity he brings to his craft and, finally, because of his love of his city and his willingness to support homegrown acts such as The Weeknd and many others. Drake is a homegrown success story. One made all the more remarkable because for most of the first half of his life, he was known as Aubrey Graham and life for that young man wasn’t so easy nor so simple, as you shall soon see.
Like many young performers who achieve musical success fairly early in life, Aubrey Graham was born into a musical family. His uncles were both musicians who played in bands with the likes of Sly and the Family Stone. His father was also a musician. Unfortunately for young Aubrey, his mother and father divorced when he was small. Aubrey stayed in Toronto with his mom while his dad moved to America. Aubrey didn’t see his dad as often as he may have liked due to legal issues his father had while living in the U.S. Because he had a criminal record, his father, Dennis, couldn’t easily travel back and forth across the border, so he only got to see his son when his mother took Aubrey across the border herself. (On a related side note, one of my favourite Canadian bands is The Arkells. One time when they were touring across America in support of one of their albums they wound up playing in Memphis. Prior to their evening show, the guys in the band spent the day exploring the city. At one point they came across a man who was playing the Blues in a bar. They thought he was talented and chatted him up once he had finished playing. When this man found out that The Arkells were from Hamilton, Ontario…a stone’s throw from Toronto…he asked if they knew his son who was a singer who went by the name Drake. The Arkells were talking with Drake’s father in Memphis! From that chance encounter, they wrote a pretty cool song called “Drake’s Dad”. It is well worth a listen and a look. You can listen to “Drake’s Dad” by The Arkells here). In any case, young Aubrey grew up in a single-parent family in the heart of Canada’s biggest city. While he never suffered any great hardships because of it, it can also be said that the cost of living in Toronto made money tight all of the time. So much so that while still a child, Aubrey Graham went to work as an actor on one of Canada’s most iconic TV series called Degrassi: the Next Generation. Graham worked on Degrassi from 2001-2008. There are many stories told of his time there that speak of his determination and willingness to sacrifice in order to achieve his goals. The most common story told from this period in his life is from when he was in his late teens and had decided that he wanted to expand his repertoire and become a rapper, as well as an actor. In those days, the route that most young aspiring rappers took was to record and release something known as a mixtape. In order to be able to afford studio time, Graham had to take whatever time slots he could get, most of which turned out to be from midnight to sunrise. The story told about the man who was soon to burst onto the world as Drake is that he wound up in trouble on the set of Degrassi because he started showing up for rehearsal late all of the time (due to his late night recording sessions). When he was warned by his producers that they would have to write him out of the show if he didn’t start showing up on time, Graham solved his problem by making a deal with a security guard at the studio to allow him to come in and sleep after his recording sessions were finished for the night. In this way, he would already be on set when everyone else started rolling in after breakfast. Drake’s hard work paid off handsomely. The money he earned from his role on Degrassi helped his mother supplement her income as a school teacher and helped to provide a better way of life for the whole family. But, far more than that, those mixtapes that Drake was recording at night as a teenager were soon to be his ticket out of the grind and into the world of fame and fortune.
One of the things about the music that Drake was producing is that it wasn’t pure rap in a technical sense. When Hip Hop first started becoming a thing in the late 1970s before exploding in the 1980s, rapping was something that had more in common with slam poetry than it did crooning. Hip Hop lyrics were written in such a way that linguistic dexterity was often as important as the timbre of one’s voice. When words are delivered in a staccato, machine gun-like manner, every syllable in combination with every sampled beat matters immensely. There was a stylishness in how words and beats combined that gave Hip Hop music an unmistakable sound and energy. While Drake certainly incorporated rapping into the lyrics of his mixtape songs, he also sang with the skill of an R&B or Soul singer. Actually singing on a Hip Hop record was something new and innovative for the time. It helped give Drake the ability to create and deliver music that sounded enough like Rap to gain entry into that world of music, but at the same time, it gave his music a completely fresh and unique sound as well. It was that freshness that caught the ears of established stars such as Lil Wayne and Jay-Z. Lil Wayne was so impressed that he invited the, as of yet, unknown singer named Drake to open for him on one of his tours. As Drake began to become a known quantity in the world of Hip Hop, he resigned from Degrassi after eight years of playing wheelchair-bound Jimmy Brooks. However, his acting chops never left him even though he became a musician full-time. Drake famously appeared as host of the comedy show Saturday Night Live. Typically, music stars appear as musical guests and simply sing their latest hits on stage. But, on this night, Drake hosted the show, acted in several skits and sang as the musical guest as well. His turn on national television as an actor was a revelation for those many Americans who did not grow up watching Degrassi as we did in Canada. The man is a multi-talented juggernaut, for sure.
If this was a 400-500 page biography rather than a 4-5 paragraph blog post, I would take you through each of Drake’s albums, the many talented people he collaborated with on each and the numerous business ventures he launched as his career unfolded. However, his career is so jam packed with success that I simply can’t describe it all in the limited space at my disposal. Suffice it to say, Drake has put in the work and is fully deserving of the acclaim he has received and the success he has enjoyed. So instead, I will cherry pick my way along and hope that by doing so you will get an overall sense of who this man is and get a taste for some of his most successful and recognizable work. “Started From the Bottom” was one of the first songs that brought Drake mainstream notice. That it was unabashedly Toronto-centric was one of the song’s great selling points. It was also an introduction to Drake’s biographical story, which included an appearance by his mother, a shout-out to his musical uncles, as well as plenty of shots of the iconic CN Tower and his first billboard alongside the Gardiner Expressway at the southern base of the city. Drake’s next big mainstream hit was a song called “Hotline Bling” from his most successful album called Views. That album went nine times platinum in the US and six times platinum in Canada. Views is sometimes called Views from the 6ix and has an album cover that famously shows Drake sitting on the edge of the CN Tower’s edgewalk platform, legs dangling freely, as he surveys his city. This album was released in 2016, which coincided with the last great playoff seasons of the Toronto Blue Jays teams that included players such as star pitcher Marcus Stroman. Stroman, who also had his own line of clothing and was an active social media presence, joined with Drake in promoting Toronto as being called The 6ix. For a time, Toronto was one of the cooler cities in the whole world. As for “Hotline Bling”, that song went straight to #1 around the world. While the song’s lyrics give some fans cause for concern in the same way that the Police song “Every Breath You Take” does…meaning a man singing about having an unhealthy obsession with his ex and her desire to move on from their relationship, “Hotline Bling” really became famous because of the music video that accompanied the song. This video shows Drake wearing a large puffy coat, thick turtleneck sweater, dancing in a stiff, almost awkward manner in a bare, brightly lit room. However, when my brand-aware youngest daughter saw this video, all she saw was a designer coat, a designer sweater and, in fact, every accessory being a designer branded accessory as well. Sometimes you can make a statement without using your words, and that is what Drake is doing in this video. He is saying that he is wealthy and successful now and is questioning why any woman would ever give him up.
While there are dozens of songs that I could have chosen to be the one to represent him in this post, the one I ended up going with is called “One Dance”. This song also comes from the Views album. I chose this song because it was a hit for him, for sure, but also because it represents a variety of elements that have come to define who Drake appears to be as a person and as a performer. “One Dance” is a song that has its roots in the dancehall and afrobeats sub genres of music that emanate from the Caribbean and from Africa. There is a strong Caribbean and African cultural presence in Toronto that touches the lives of all who live in the city. “One Dance” also features Drake’s affinity for collaborating with talented players. In the case of this song, he sings alongside Grammy Award winning Nigerian singer Wizkid, as well as UK house music singer Kyla. Finally, “One Dance” is a Rap song that features singing as its highlights. That Drake is known almost as much for being a singer as he is a rapper comes through loud and clear on this track.
Whether Drake is appearing courtside during Toronto Raptors basketball games or hosting his own Toronto-based OVO music festival or quietly supporting fellow Toronto area musicians or local charities or tirelessly promoting the city of Toronto, he is someone that all of Canada can be proud of. Drake quite literally started from the bottom and now he is here at the top of the music world. He has gold records and #1 hit songs the same way that I have socks and underwear. He has worked with the best that the music industry has to offer because he firmly believes that in order to be the best, you learn from the best. That is a particular brand of self-confidence that helps to elevate him within the industry. It is easy to feel important when you surround yourself with an entourage of sycophants, it is another thing entirely to collaborate with the giants of your field because of who they are and what they can bring to the table and how much mutual respect that all entails. Although he is not Canada’s biggest selling artist of all time (Guy Lombardo is…you can read that post here if you wish), Drake is arguably one of, if not the biggest star we have ever produced on a worldwide scale (no offense to Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Justin Bieber, Alanis Morissette, Bryan Adams, Shania Twain or Celine Dion). We are so lucky to have the talent we do in Canada. Thanks to Drake for doing his part to wave the flag for Toronto and for all of Canada in the process. I look forward to seeing what else he manages to accomplish in the second half of his career. Whatever it is, I am predicting that it will be impressive.
The link to the official website for Drake can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “Started From the Bottom” by Drake can be found here. ***NOTE: due to language, this video is NSFW. Viewer discretion advised. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to the video for the song “Hotline Bling” can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to the video for the song “One Dance” by Drake featuring Wizkid and Kyla can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to the official website for the city known as The 6ix can be found here.
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