In a world where streaming services mean tastes have broadened, and where ethnic and musical diversity is championed among the millennials that make up the majority of his fanbase, he sits in the middle of a cultural and stylistic Venn diagram. His peculiar handsomeness – feminine eyes and lips, coupled with a thick beard and strong forehead – is both soft and hard.
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If questions around identity ever felt awkward during his teenage years, they became key to Drake’s success later on, allowing him to be all things to all people: black and white Jewish and non-religious a singer and a rapper a hard-scrabble working-class hustler an aspirational middle-class professional a superstar. The family home was in the working-class west side of the city, before the Grahams moved to the more affluent Forest Hill in what Drake has claimed were still relatively straitened circumstances: “I went to school with kids that were flying private jets. His parents split up when he was five, his father moving away to Memphis.
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Crucially, his identity and upbringing have also been key.Īubrey Drake Graham was born in Toronto in 1986 to Dennis Graham, an African-American session musician whose power-moustache currently lights up his vibrant social media feed, and Sandi Graham, a white Ashkenazi Jewish teacher. Why?ĭrake has, of course, amassed huge star quality via a decade of often excellent music, but there are also more prosaic reasons: his gossip-mag visibility from relationships with Rihanna, Serena Williams and Jennifer Lopez, and his swaggering self-confidence in describing himself as “last name ever, first name greatest” before his debut album had even come out. We have now reached the point where even the B-grade solo material of God’s Plan is a shoo-in for No 1. In the interim, the commercial fortunes of tracks that he guested on, such as Blocboy JB’s Look Alive, NERD’s Lemon, and Migos’ Walk It Talk It, have all been boosted by his presence. These are just his most successful chart moments Drake’s last major release, 2017’s “playlist” More Life, saw each of its 22 tracks hit the UK top 75. His best track with a foreign star is KMT, in which Drake’s foe-taunting flow – admittedly reminiscent of XXXTentacion – is joined by British rapper Giggs, who delivers ever more quotable lines on the way to the Batman-quoting, moshpit-exploding payoff.
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The goofy video ensured the memes were instant and unrelenting. Using a brilliantly sped-up Timmy Thomas sample, this is Drake’s biggest pop moment, with his finest top-line melody. Recalling the marble-smooth 80s R&B oeuvre of Alexander O’Neal, this request for “hot love and emotion” is shamelessly cheesy – and genuinely romantic.ĭrake remembers the hard days coming up in Toronto, “running through the six with my woes” – a track that could be an official city anthem were it not so fraught.Īs his biceps and chest expanded, his music got more masculine – Jumpman, a basketball anthem created with Future, is perfect for slam-dancing bro-downs. On The Ride he finds ennui in expensive dinners, and emptiness in airport security compliments. If his first album talked his success into existence, his second had him fretting about what he had created. Drake waits for his girl to get ready for a night out, on an underrated cut to sit alongside other champagne-poppers he guests on, such as French Montana’s Pop That and Nicki Minaj’s Truffle Butter.