- Canadian Hip hop/R&B singer and songwriter, born Aubrey Drake Graham in 1986 in Toronto Ontario.
- Drake attended high school and showed an interest in acting. At 15, the father of a high school friend found Drake a role in a Canadian teen TV series, DeGrassi: The Next Generation. Soon, as he was often bullied in high school, he dropped out of school to focus on acting. He appeared in 145 episodes of the show, until 2007.
- He was inspired by hip hop artists Jay Z and Clipse, and started making independent mixtapes. In 2006, he released his first, titled Room For Improvement – he sold 6,000 copies that year. The following year, still unsigned to a record label, he released Comeback Season. One of the songs included a sample of the song by Lil Wayne, and when Lil Wayne heard it, he invited Drake to join him on his concert tour. Drake and Lil Wayne started recording songs together.
- Drake released a third mixtape in 2009 – So Far Gone. It was made available for free on his website, and 2,000 downloads occurred in the first 2 hours. Its success led to a re-release of the mixtape as an EP, with 2 additional songs. This EP was very successful – the single Best I Ever Had sold over 3 million downloads, and peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Finally, he was signed to a recording label.
- His debut studio album, Thank Me Later, was released in 2010. The first single from the album, Over, reached #1 on the Hot Rap Songs chart. The second single, Find Your Love, reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 200 chart, showing the crossover appeal of Drake.
- All 5 studio albums released by Drake have topped the Billboard 200 album chart. His second album, Take Care, was released in 2011, and won the Grammy award for Best Rap Album. Songs reaching #1 on the Rap chart were Headlines, Make Me Proud (featuring Nicki Minaj) and The Motto (featuring Lil Wayne). Additionally, while it only hit #2, his collaboration with Rihanna, Take Care, peaked at #7 on the Hot 100 chart and sold over 4 million downloads.
- He has released 3 more studio albums, as well as 3 mixtapes. His most successful songs on these works are Hotline Bling (which won 2 Grammy awards), Jumpman (collaboration with Future), One Dance (collaboration with Wizkid and Kyla) and Controlla. He also won a Grammy award for Best Rap Song for God’s Plan in 2019.
- Drake has been the featured artist with numerous other artists – 83 singles have been released by other artists with Drake as featured artist. Several have been huge hits. Rihanna’s songs What’s My Name and Work both topped the Hot 100 chart and sold over 6 million downloads, and Travis Scott’s Sicko Mode topped the chart and sold over 7 million downloads.
- He has the most charted songs by a solo artist in the history of the Billboard charts, with 205. He has the record for the most #1 songs on the R&B/Hip Hop Chart, with 16. He also holds the record for the most singles on the Hot 100 chart at the same time, with 27 songs – that means that 27% of all the songs on the chart that week were Drake songs – that is crazy!
- Drake’s is a force in today’s music world. He combines hip hop with singing, putting his music into the R&B space. Here’s his most watched video, Hotline Bling.