All About Drake

Drake is a 30 year old rapper from Toronto, Canada.  Before he became known as a musician, Drake gained recognition as an actor on a television series known as Degrassi. Drake played a character called “Jimmy Brooks.” This character was seen as a basketball all-star and had a wealthy background, but was one of the more humble characters. In season 3, he was shot in his leg, which left him crippled from the waist down.

Even though at the time he was known as an actor, Drake had always been into music. In 2007 following his mixtape, he released ‘Comeback Season’ and ‘So Far Gone’. This song is what really made Drake a star, and helped him become an important voice in hip-hop. The album/mixtape starts off with him saying “I’m trying to do it all tonight’’ as if he's trying to make the full thing in one night. We doubt that he could've done that, but there's no actual evidence saying he didn’t. In june of 2009, Drake sang for rapper Lil Wayne’s ‘Young Money Entertainment.’ Drake went on to release album ‘Thank Me Later’ which eventually went platinum. ‘Thank me later’ featured many popular artists such as Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj and even Jay Z. In 2011, he released ‘Take Care’ arguably his best album to date, and my personal favourite. In this album, he once again had the help of many well known artists, featuring Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar and a few others. This album really got Drake to where he is today and formed him into the musician we all love so very much. The album had both sides of Drake being the soft, loving Drake which we see very clearly in the song ‘Marvin’s Room’ and tough, rap Drake which is clearly shown in song ‘Headlines’. In 2013, he released ‘Nothing Was The Same’ also one of his most well known albums and one of my personal favourites. In this album, Drake proves to people that he is able to really rap. In 2015, Drake was in his prime and he released two albums: ‘If You're Reading This It’s too Late’ and ‘What A Time To Be Alive’. After the long, 2 year wait it was only right for him to drop two albums. Album ‘If You're Reading This It's too late’ was very light on features which showed us all that Drake doesn't really need features to perform. The rapper's album ‘What a Time To Be Alive’ was in collaboration with fellow rapper, Future.

Although Drake is clearly present in the album and it is technically his album, this is more of a Future show. We do see a lot of shots that Drake takes at rapper Meek Mill during this album though. In 2016, Drake releases the album ‘Views’ which wasn't really heavy on features either but there were a few. For the first couple weeks, people weren't very pleased with this album and were saying it was not very well made compared to his past albums. It took a week or two for people to adapt and let the album sink in, until everyone finally loved it. Finally, Drake's most recent album ‘More Life’ was the album that was amazing, and blew up pretty quickly. The only problem Drake faced on this album was possibly copying the beat and rhythm of an artist known as Xxxtentacion. Aside from that, it was a unanimous decision that it was all around a great album. I can't wait to see what Drake has in store for us for the future.

Sources:  

1. "Jimmy Brooks." Degrassi Wiki. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.
2. McMahon, Kevin, Adam Kivel, Alejandra Ramirez, Dan Weiss, Pat Levy and Sheldon Pearce, Philip Cosores, Philip Cosores and Collin Brennan, Alex Young, Eddie Fu, Wren Graves, Michael Madden, and Michelle Geslani. "Album Review: Drake – More Life." Consequence of Sound. N.p., 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.

     3. Scarano, Ross. "Ranking Drake's Albums From Best to Worst." Complex CA. Complex CA, 20

Pictures:

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