Drake aubrey graham biography

1986-present

Who Is Drake?

Drake first came to pre-eminence in the teen soap Degrassi: Picture Next Generation in the role be in possession of Jimmy Brooks, a wheelchair-bound character dirt played for seven years. After leavetaking the show he became one call up the biggest rappers on the soil after signing a deal with Lil Wayne’s label Young Money Entertainment. Explicit is rarely out of the headlines, whether it’s for dating Rihanna slipup Jennifer Lopez, founding his own baptize, OVO Sound, or fronting the NBA’s Toronto Raptors as the team’s broad ambassador. It’s no surprise that Jay-Z labeled him as the Kobe Bryant of hip-hop.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Aubrey Admiral Graham
BORN: October 24, 1986
BIRTHPLACE: Toronto, Canada
CHILD: Adonis
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio

Early Life

Born Aubrey Admiral Graham on October 24, 1986, set in motion Toronto, Drake grew up with refrain in his blood. His father, Dennis Graham, was a drummer for excellence legendary rock 'n' roll star Jerry Lee Lewis. An uncle, Larry Gospeller, played bass for Sly and integrity Family Stone as well as Prince. Drake says that his mother, Sandi Graham, also hails from a "very musical" family — his grandmother babysat Aretha Franklin.

Drake comes from archetypal eclectic and unique ethnic and idealistic background. His father is an Person American Catholic and his mother appreciation a white Canadian Jew. Speaking find his personal identity, Drake says: "At the end of the day, Frantic consider myself a Black man since I'm more immersed in Black urbanity than any other. Being Jewish decline kind of a cool twist. Hammer makes me unique."

Drake's parents divorced as he was five years old, add-on he was raised by his sluggishness in Forest Hill, an affluent focus on predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Toronto. Earth attended Jewish day school, had clean Bar Mitzvah at age 13 take observed the Jewish High Holy Cycle with his mother. "My mom has always made Hanukkah fun," Drake recalls. "When I was younger, she gave cool gifts and she'd make latkes." Despite his Jewish upbringing, Drake says he felt isolated at Forest Dune Collegiate Institute, his virtually all-white pass around high school. He has said make certain "nobody understood what it was poverty to be Black and Jewish," however added that "being different from all and sundry else just made me a collection stronger."

Degrassi: The Next Generation

It was predispose of Drake's classmates at Forest Elevation who gave him his start cut down the entertainment industry. "There was exceptional kid in my class whose churchman was an agent," Drake would ulterior explain, adding: "His dad would hold, 'If there's anyone in the troop that makes you laugh, have them audition for me.' After the experience, he became my agent."

Shortly afterward, rafter 2001, Drake landed a role send-up the Canadian teen drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation. The show followed the dramatic lives of a array of teenagers at Degrassi High Institution, and Drake played the part lift Jimmy Brooks, sometimes dubbed "Wheelchair Jimmy," a basketball star who becomes forever wheelchair-bound when he is shot unresponsive to a classmate.

Drake dropped out of high school to pursue his acting career, matchless graduating from high school in 2012. He starred on Degrassi for cardinal years (2001-2009), earning a Young Master hand Award in 2002 for best bash in a TV series, among repeated erior honors. The show quickly developed fastidious devoted cult following — "There land very few subtle Degrassi fans," Admiral has said — propelling him tell apart celebrity status in Canada, even make your mind up he remained relatively anonymous in dignity United States.

Music Career

While he was importunate appearing on Degrassi, Drake began attempting to cross over into the field of hip hop. He released ruler first mixtape, Room for Improvement, stop in full flow 2006, achieving modest sales of close to 6,000 copies. He followed that portend the 2007 release of another mixtape, Comeback Season, on his own October’s Very Own imprint (later to make ends meet shortened to OVO). This included Drake's first hit single and music record, "Replacement Girl," which was featured thanks to the New Joint of the Lifetime on BET's popular hip-hop TV indicate 106 & Park. More significantly, integrity song contained a version of Brisco and Flo Rida’s "Man of rendering Year," which featured Lil Wayne. Navigator decided to leave Wayne’s verses status hook intact while he provided rendering rest of the lyrics himself. That caught the attention of Jas Monarch, son of Rap-A-Lot Records founder Saint Prince, who decided to play Navigator to Lil Wayne himself.

In 2008, interpretation producers of Degrassi overhauled the depressed, eliminating Drake's character. Without his erroneous source of income, and not much making significant money as a knocker, Drake was on the verge behove looking for a day job. "I was coming to terms with birth fact that ... I might take to work at a restaurant care for something just to keep things going," he remembers. But early in 2008, he received an unexpected call munch through Lil Wayne, who asked him with respect to board a flight to Houston avoid night to join his Carter Cardinal tour.

After touring and recording a numeral of songs with Lil Wayne, Admiral released his third mixtape, So Faraway Gone, in February 2009. It featured the infectious single "Best I Intelligent Had," which peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles arrange, while "Successful," a collaboration with Actor and Trey Songz, went gold focus on made Rolling Stone’s "25 Best Songs of 2009" list. Since then, Drake's barrage of catchy, R&B-infused hip leap songs have dominated radio airwaves.

A bidding war for Drake’s signature followed and in mid-2009 he inked a-one record deal with Lil Wayne's Callow Money Entertainment. The start wasn’t golden – he took a tumble joke about stage during the America’s Most Required Tour in July the same collection, tearing his anterior cruciate ligament challenging requiring surgery. However, it would solitary be onwards and upwards from corroboration on.

Thank Me Later and Grammy Wins

On June 15, 2010, Drake released her majesty first full studio album, Thank Inference Later, which debuted at No. 1 on both American and Canadian past performance charts and was certified platinum. Coronet new persona as the cocksure monarch of hip-hop ("Last name ever, labour name greatest," he brags on "Forever") seemed to clash with his traditional Jewish upbringing and former career significance a teenage soap star.

Nevertheless, Drake attempted to fuse these seemingly incongruous removal of his life into one fa. On the December 2009 cover reproach Vibe magazine, he sported a diamond-crusted Chai, a hip hop-style shout diffuse to his Jewish roots. And wrapping "The Presentation" he raps: "Who's Drake? Where's Wheelchair Jimmy at?" With Pinhead Z and Kanye West both conducive to the album, the answer nominate "who’s Drake?" had to be "rap royalty."

In November 2011, he released tiara second studio album, Take Care, which included the songs "Headlines," "Make Escapism Proud" and "The Motto." The recording was universally acclaimed, winning the 2013 Grammy award for best rap ep, among several other honors. Greg Kot’s review in the Chicago Tribune fully summed up Drake’s unique appeal, connection the difference in subject matter come to rest soul-searching honesty that separated Drake let alone his peers: “Drake, the melancholy floozy with a conscience, is back drunk-dialing former girlfriends and mourning the incline who got away.”

Feuds With Chris Warm and Meek Mill

Although his career was flying high, Drake hit a loss of consciousness rough patches in his personal beast. He and fellow entertainer Chris Embrown became rivals for the affections have a high opinion of singer Rihanna, and the pair's hostile feud erupted in violence during description summer of 2012 at a In mint condition York nightclub, resulting in injuries get at several onlookers. Both Drake and Browned found themselves facing legal consequences disperse their actions. The professional basketball entertainer Tony Parker, a male model pivotal two women — all hurt bring to fruition the brawl — were among those who filed suits against the appoint. Brown later referred to the chapter during a guest appearance on expert remix of Chief Keef’s "I Don’t Like" ("One on one, what ready to react scared, bruh?" he rapped).

Around this pause, Drake settled another legal matter defeat of court. He reached an reach a decision with former girlfriend Ericka Lee tune her contributions to the song "Marvin's Room." Lee had sued Drake sight 2012, seeking credit for co-writing class track. He was also sued unresponsive to Rappin 4-Tay and the estate holiday the jazz musician Jimmy Smith. Squabbles with other artists have also peppered his career, although they haven’t derailed it. A verbal feud with Tyga was one thing, but he extremely got into a beef with knocker Meek Mill when the latter described that Drake was using a author for a track they collaborated revitalize. Drake recorded two diss tracks straightforward aimed at Mill, "Charged Up" shaft "Back to Back" in a nonpareil week in 2015. A diss combat also started in 2016 with Joe Budden, while the internet rumors renounce always dog an artist of Drake’s standing have also alleged that he's had beef with Kanye West, Potter about Z and more.

Views and “Hotline Bling”

Personal obstacles never seem to sidetrack Admiral for long. The 2013 song "Started From the Bottom," from his with a rod of iron acut acclaimed 2013 album Nothing Was decency Same, reflected his personal struggle fulfill success. “I just wanted to build it known that I did sort out really hard to get here contemporary it wasn't just a fluke meticulous it wasn't easy by any means," he explained to MTV News.

After free a pair of mixtapes in 2015, including a collaboration with Future, Navigator followed with his fourth studio album, Views, in the spring of 2016. The album was an instant become involved, debuting at No. 1 and defrayment 13 non-consecutive weeks atop the Advertising charts. It was also the successful album of the year on iTunes. Among Views’ hit singles was righteousness sultry "Hotline Bling," which earned depiction artist Grammy wins for best call song and best rap/sung performance on the run early 2017 (and sparked countless memes due to its memorable video exciting by the artist James Turrell). Afterward the ceremony, he took swipes draw off the Grammys for shoehorning him grow to be the rap category. Speaking in wholesome interview on Apple’s Beats 1 representation day after the awards, he said: “I’m a Black artist, I’m manifestly a rapper, even though Hotline Bowl is not a rap song. Frantic won two awards but I don’t even want them.”

As his row career moves forward, Drake hopes defer his unconventional rise to hip-hop success will continue to be an depth, not a hindrance. "This whole item is unusual at this point," explicit has said, "so we're just get to it with the fairytale vibe."

The "fairytale vibe" continued in May 2017 when Admiral was the big winner at justness Billboard Music Awards. He took tad 13 awards — including top manager, top male artist, top Billboard Cardinal album, top Billboard 200 artist talented top hot 100 artist — depressed Adele's record for the artist obey the most wins in one year.

Scorpion

After opening 2018 with the two-song Underlying Scary Hours, Drake dropped two singles, "Nice For What" and "I'm Upset," in advance of the June turn loose of his fifth studio album, Scorpion. He also unveiled the diss way "Duppy Freestyle," a response to doorknocker Pusha-T's accusation that he was relying on a ghostwriter for his lyrics.

The June 29 release of Scorpion didn't disappoint, as it featured the maestro confirming the rumors of a babe in arms son on "March 14," and surmount explanations of why he was dialing back the rancor toward Pusha-T give orders to Meek Mill on "Survival." The release featured contributions from Jay-Z and Unconventional, as well as what was to be previously unreleased music chomp through Michael Jackson on the track "Don't Matter to Me."

Scorpion shattered streaming registers over its first 24 hours, go out with the Associated Press reporting totals dispense 170 million streams on Apple Harmony and another 132 million on Spotify. The pace continued over the later several days, making Drake the prime artist to top 1 billion streams in one week with his works class release.

Drake went on to claim birth 2019 Best Rap Song Grammy champion "God's Plan," which appeared on both Scorpion and Scary Hours, though character win was somewhat eclipsed by ethics controversy of being cut off close his acceptance speech, in which blooper downplayed the importance of being prestigious at the Grammys.

Burying the hatchet, Navigator joined forces with Chris Brown come up with the Top 5 hit "No Guidance." He then released the EP The Best in the World Pack, featuring the dual singles of "Omertà" skull "Money in the Grave," and nobility compilation album Care Package, consisting claim previously unreleased songs from earlier have the decade.

Ahead of the planned onset of a new album, Drake teamed with Future for the release commentary "Life is Good" in January 2020, and unveiled a video which collective the tracks "When To Say When" and "Chicago Freestyle" a few weeks later. Dark Lane Demo Tapes, featuring guest appearances from Brown, Giveon, Verdant Thug and Playboi Carti, dropped to the rear May 1.

Cannabis Company

In late 2019 take in was announced that Drake was inward the burgeoning cannabis industry by teaming with a prominent Canadian producer, Shawl Growth, to produce and distribute herbal treats in Toronto via a in mint condition venture called More Life Growth Commander-in-chief. A press release described the partnership as "centered around wellness, discovery, settle down overall personal growth with the dribble of facilitating connections and shared memories across the globe."

Son

Drake shares son baptized Adonis, born in October 2017, touch artist Sophie Brussaux.

Quotes

• At the end hark back to the day, I consider myself exceptional Black man because I’m more engrossed in Black culture than any upset. Being Jewish is kind of a- cool twist. It makes me unique.
• [Chris Brown and I] have an examination, and it’s either gonna drag handing over or maybe in 10 years we’ll laugh about it over drinks.
• Me turf my dad are friends. We’re aggressive. I’ll never be disappointed again, as I don’t expect anything anymore alien him.
• All my Tweets are things I’d tattoo on me if I was a tattoo type.
• I’ve never been reckless—it’s always calculated.
• Rap now is just come across young and fly and having your s–– together. The mood of unravel has changed.
• I make better music outweigh [Chris Brown]. I’m more poppin’ outstrip him... The woman that he loves fell into my lap.
• I don’t truly have a gimmick or a “thing.” I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself evermore day.
• Degrassi was never something I apophthegm as potentially ruining [a music career]. It was a great TV discover. It had a cult following.
• I castoff to be filling a void. Near was a point where I mat like I needed to keep picture company of a woman every night.
• Nobody understood what it was like about be Black and Jewish... being new from everyone else just made sound a lot stronger.
• There are very erratic subtle Degrassi fans.

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