SCROLL v
A TIMELINE
an ensemble player in a Canadian teen soap opera on cable. He lived in a basement with his mom and he borrowed his uncle’s car to try to impress girls on nights out. But he also had potential, as displayed on mixtapes like 2006’s Room For Improvement and 2007’s Comeback Season.
It was enough to get him on BET’s 106 & Park countdown with the Trey Songz-featuring “Replacement Girl” and earn the respect of then superstars Clipse, with whom he planned his first (canceled) national tour of the US. He also gained an audience with Lil Wayne through the efforts of Jas Prince, which would eventually flourish into a full-blown record deal with Young Money — after a major-label bidding war prompted by his fan-favorite, internet-breaking mixtape,
That level of anticipation was driven in large part by the audience he’d garnered as a cast member of television’s Degrassi, but there were also many who were curious after his song “Brand New” leaked a few months before. Originally a reference track for a singer who somehow remains unidentified to this day, the song was leaked online and later shared officially on Drake’s MySpace page. Along with his appearances on mixtapes like DJ Wrispect’s Bridging The Gap series and The Exactly’s Your New Favorite Mixtape with DJ Haircut (aka Mayer Hawthorne), the buzz for Drake’s next project had reached deafening levels by 2009.
When So Far Gone actually dropped, it did so with the sort of anticipation normally reserved for rare sneaker releases. The phrase “broke the internet” gets overused, but that’s literally what happened, as one after another, the sites hosting the tape crashed from the traffic overload. Drake arrived to a king’s welcome and overnight success, but it was really built on the hard work put in and missteps he suffered along the way.
So Far Gone
For DRAKE to be such a international , it sure doesn’t seem like there’s any one unified version of him. With each album and its accompanying era, he shifts, chameleon-like, adapting to changes in pop culture and in turn, prompting pop culture to adapt to him. Ever since he arrived on the mainstream stage with 2009’s So Far Gone, seemingly fully formed, the world has had trouble defining him. Is he a singer? Is he a rapper? Is he a recording artist who acts or an actor who developed into the biggest pop star of all time?
Drake has leaned into that haziness, using it to carve out a space for himself in the zeitgeist and redefine all of the roles he’s chosen for himself, as well as the ones foisted onto him by fans. Whether you hate him, love him, hate to love him, or love to hate him, Drake has been the center of the pop culture universe for a long time, and with his sixth studio album coming soon — titled — it appears that’s exactly what he’ll remain for the foreseeable future.
by AARON WILLIAMS
// HIP-HOP EDITOR
ubiquitous
CERTIFIED LOVER BOY
becoming
CERTIFIED
LOVER BOY
Once upon
a time, Drake
was just Aubrey Graham
2009
SUPERSTAR
Thank Me Later
2010
By the time Thank Me Later was in the works for its June 2010 release, Drake was a bonafide superstar. His guest features on songs like "Money to Blow,” "Say Something," and "Aston Martin Music" had made him
— so much so, that a planned free show to celebrate the release of his long-awaited debut album was shut down early by police when the boisterous crowd threatened to boil over into a riot.
It was during this time that Drake established his OVO Fest in Toronto. It was also when he first established his working relationship with Kanye West on the song “Find Your Love.” Kanye had previously directed the video for Drake’s breakout hit “Best I Ever Had” but it wouldn’t be long before Drake’s success made him a legitimate rival in Kanye’s eyes, sparking the beginnings of their still ongoing feud.
one of hip-hop's
hottest commodities
Take Care
2012
2012‘s Take Care is considered by many to be Drake’s first classic album. In the lead-up to its release, he established his penchant for discovering burgeoning talents and helping them develop into superstars via his October’s Very Own blog. It was through this blog that Drake helped introduce up-and-coming Toronto talents like Majid Jordan, PartyNextDoor, and The Weeknd, the last of which helped him craft the dark, woozy sounds of Take Care.
Unfortunately, the two artists had a falling out that would last for several more projects between the two of them. However, their original partnership proved fruitful — Drake earned his first Grammy Award for Best Rap Album behind Take Care’s bipolar blend of moody introspection and triumphant celebration. He also worked with Rihanna for the first time, establishing the working chemistry that would lead to his first career No. 1 on 2016’s “Work” and setting the stage for his rivalry with R&B singer Chris Brown, who had been temporarily shunned by the music industry over his treatment of Rihanna in 2009.
Nothing Was
The Same
2013
Nothing really was the same after Take Care launched Drake into the pop culture stratosphere. Going into his third studio album, Drake was the center of the rap world, the self-proclaimed 6 God, whose blessing could help spark a rising artist’s ascent. Just ask ILoveMakonnen, whose single “Tuesday” went from local hit to national phenomenon, or Migos, whose “Versace” remix with Drake was everywhere in the summer of 2013. Meanwhile, Drake returned to acting as he hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time in 2014.
2015
The Boy truly flexed his influence with the release of the ambiguous If You’re Reading This It's Too Late in 2014. To this day, it’s still debated whether it’s an album or a mixtape, but whatever it is, it remains one of his most widely beloved projects thanks to musical moments like “Energy, “Know Yourself,” and “Jungle,” which was accompanied by a full-on mini-movie paying homage to the most important woman in the self-declared ladies’ man’s life: His mom.
Appearing in the dead of night with little warning, If You’re Reading This arrived like a thunderclap to wake up a rap game that had started to fall asleep on his rap skills. It crowned Lou Williams as one of the coolest basketball players to handle a rock, it made us all wonder what exactly a “whoa” (“woe?”) was, and it was ostensibly released as a “commercial mixtape” to help fulfill Drake’s contract with Cash Money Records, although Views would also be released through the label in a year’s time.
If You're Reading This It's Too Late
What A Time
2015
In a genre that teases more supergroups than the average comic book publisher, seeing these proposed partnerships come to fruition feels like a rarer occurrence than actually gaining superpowers from a spider bite in real life.
However, when Future and Drake deigned to reunite on this gem of a mixtape, they set the world on fire with buzz about the possibilities. Future's adamant aesthetic sensibilities lead the way on the tape, but Drake more than holds his own, especially on inescapably catchy tracks like “Big Rings." Meanwhile, the tape laid the groundwork for future highly successful collaborations like 2020’s “Life Is Good.” To this day, fans still clamor for a sequel — one the pair have been more than happy to tease several times in the years since.
2015 also saw the falling out between Drake and frequent collaborator Meek Mill, who accused the Canadian star of using ghostwriters on their song “R.I.C.O.” The result was a one-two punch of a response from Drake that turned “Back To Back” into a new diss record standard and effectively ruined the relationship between Drake and Meek’s then-paramour Nicki Minaj.
With 2016's Views, Drake delved deeper into his melodramatic universe, shouting out Cheesecake Factory and bringing African pop music to the forefront of American mainstream awareness with collaborations alongside Davido and Wizkid. He also fully became America’s favorite meme subject thanks to the easily manipulated cover, which just begged fans to perch a moody Drake anywhere and everywhere via a website that cut the CN Tower out of his background.
Views also brought the dawn of Drake’s “Hotline Bling”-era of cultural ubiquity. The sweater, the dance, the James Turrell-inspired set — all of them became the lingua franca of companies looking to sell phone service, politicians angling for reelection, and internet comedians expressing their preferences.
Views
2016
More Life
2017
Billed as a “playlist” rather than an album after the lukewarm reception toward Views, More Life saw Drake become more global in his approach and lighthearted in his content in 2017. Rather than the grim introspection and moody paranoia of its predecessor, More Life delighted in juggling dancehall, grime, and Afrobeats as Drake contemplated scorned exes and the sacrifices of fame. Unfortunately for fans of the Drake-Kanye connection, this also was the last time the two were on good terms thanks to a series of misunderstandings and slights that became full-blown war in the lead-up to their next set of projects.
First, Kanye seemingly snaked Drake’s release date. Then, someone let slip that Drake had secretly become a father. After Pusha T baited him with his Daytona opener “Infrared,” Drake slipped up for the first time, jumping into a battle he couldn’t win with “Duppy Freestyle.” When Pusha exposed his secret child, Drake raised the white flag, returning to work on his double album — albeit, with a new focus and more fodder for its dark, suspicious tone.
Scorpion
2018
However, Drake’s Scorpion era kicked off with a bang — his first solo No. 1 — thanks to “God’s Plan” and its eventual replacement at No. 1, “Nice For What.” Drake reasserted his dominance and proved that he could turn any lead sprayed his way by detractors and foes into gold.
That alchemy extended to even surprise hits like “In My Feelings,” which reframed the promotional paradigm for the entire industry. Once internet personality Shiggy had turned his lighthearted dance to the song into a “challenge,” seemingly every celebrity on social media felt the need to get involved, and ever since, you’d be hard-pressed to find any rap star who isn’t trying to promote a new single with a viral dance challenge.
2018 also saw Drake reconcile with Meek Mill and lend his co-sign to yet another cadre of breakout stars, including eventual 2020 man of the year Lil Baby and McDonald’s pitchman Travis Scott. There’s no doubt Scott owes a debt of gratitude to The Boy; whose participation on “Sicko Mode” helped give Scott his first No. 1 hit and raise his profile far enough to get on the radar for companies like the golden arches, Sony, and Nike.
Leave it to Drake to double down on a successful meme strategy to help promote a tape of supposed throwaways. “Toosie Slide,” the lead single from 2020's Dark Lane Demo Tapes, found him crafting his own two-step to take advantage of the cresting TikTok wave and ensure he remained ubiquitous enough to drop three tapes in a row of throwbacks (a tenth anniversary So Far Gone reissue), loose tracks (the SoundCloud-collecting Care Package), and experiments.
Dark Lane Demo Tapes saw Drake dabbling in UK drill — perhaps setting up the parallel breakout in New York City that helped launch Pop Smoke to superstardom — paying homage to Eminem on “Chicago Freestyle” (simultaneously helping launch Long Beach native Giveon into the R&B spotlight), and giving Playboi Carti space to run loose in between projects, exposing his unique brand of conventionless
to a new audience. Even with mixed reviews, the project debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, proving that Drake remained as central to the culture as ever, even after taking an L to Pusha T in 2018.
ad-lib driven
Dark Lane
2020
Demo Tapes
So Far
Gone
2015
an ensemble player in a Canadian teen soap opera on cable. He lived in a basement with his mom and he borrowed his uncle’s car to try to impress girls on nights out. But he also had potential, as displayed on mixtapes like 2006’s Room For Improvement and 2007’s Comeback Season.
It was enough to get him on BET’s 106 & Park countdown with the Trey Songz-featuring “Replacement Girl” and earn the respect of then superstars Clipse, with whom he planned his first (canceled) national tour of the US. He also gained an audience with Lil Wayne through the efforts of Jas Prince, which would eventually flourish into a full-blown record deal with Young Money — after a major-label bidding war prompted by his fan-favorite, internet-breaking mixtape,
That level of anticipation was driven in large part by the audience he’d garnered as a cast member of television’s Degrassi, but there were also many who were curious after his song “Brand New” leaked a few months before. Originally a reference track for a singer who somehow remains unidentified to this day, the song was leaked online and later shared officially on Drake’s MySpace page. Along with his appearances on mixtapes like DJ Wrispect’s Bridging The Gap series and The Exactly’s Your New Favorite Mixtape with DJ Haircut (aka Mayer Hawthorne), the buzz for Drake’s next project had reached deafening levels by 2009.
When So Far Gone actually dropped, it did so with the sort of anticipation normally reserved for rare sneaker releases. The phrase “broke the internet” gets overused, but that’s literally what happened, as one after another, the sites hosting the tape crashed from the traffic overload. Drake arrived to a king’s welcome and overnight success, but it was really built on the hard work put in and missteps he suffered along the way.
By the time Thank Me Later was in the works for its June 2010 release, Drake was a bonafide superstar. His guest features on songs like "Money to Blow,” "Say Something," and "Aston Martin Music" had made him
— so much so, that a planned free show to celebrate the release of his long-awaited debut album was shut down early by police when the boisterous crowd threatened to boil over into a riot.
It was during this time that Drake established his OVO Fest in Toronto. It was also when he first established his working relationship with Kanye West on the song “Find Your Love.” Kanye had previously directed the video for Drake’s breakout hit “Best I Ever Had” but it wouldn’t be long before Drake’s success made him a legitimate rival in Kanye’s eyes, sparking the beginnings of their still ongoing feud.
Thank Me Later
2016
Take Care
2018
2012‘s Take Care is considered by many to be Drake’s first — or only — classic album. In the lead-up to its release, he established his penchant for discovering burgeoning talents and helping them develop into superstars via his October’s Very Own blog. It was through this blog that Drake helped introduce up-and-coming Toronto talents like Majid Jordan, PartyNextDoor, and The Weeknd, the last of which helped him craft the dark, woozy sounds of Take Care.
Unfortunately, the two artists had a falling out that would last for several more projects between the two of them. However, their original partnership proved fruitful — Drake earned his first Grammy Award for Best Rap Album behind Take Care’s bipolar blend of moody introspection and triumphant celebration. He also worked with Rihanna for the first time, establishing the working chemistry that would lead to his first career No. 1 on 2016’s “Work” and setting the stage for his rivalry with R&B singer Chris Brown, who had been temporarily shunned by the music industry after abusing Rihanna in 2009.
What A Time
2018
In a genre that teases more supergroups than the average comic book publisher, seeing these proposed partnerships come to fruition feels like a rarer occurrence than actually gaining superpowers from a spider bite in real life.
However, when Future and Drake deigned to reunite on this gem of a mixtape, they set the world on fire with buzz about the possibilities. While Future is the consensus star of the tape, seemingly overwhelming the more malleable Drake with his own adamant aesthetic sensibilities, the tape laid the groundwork for future highly successful collaborations like 2020’s “Life Is Good.” To this day, fans still clamor for a sequel — one the pair have been more than happy to tease several times in the years since.
2015 also saw the falling out between Drake and frequent collaborator Meek Mill, who accused the Canadian star of using ghostwriters on their song “R.I.C.O.” The result was a one-two punch of a response from Drake that turned “Back To Back” into a new diss record standard and effectively ruined the relationship between Drake and Meek’s then-paramour Nicki Minaj.
Dark Lane
Demo Tapes
2020
The Boy truly flexed his influence with the release of the ambiguous If You’re Reading This It's Too Late in 2014. To this day, it’s still debated whether it’s an album or a mixtape, but whatever it is, it remains one of his most widely beloved projects thanks to musical moments like “Energy, “Know Yourself,” and “Jungle,” which was accompanied by a full-on mini-movie paying homage to the most important woman in the self-declared ladies’ man’s life: His mom.
Appearing in the dead of night with little warning, If You’re Reading This arrived like a thunderclap to wake up a rap game that had started to fall asleep on his rap skills. It crowned Lou Williams as one of the coolest basketball players to handle a rock, it made us all wonder what exactly a “whoa” (“woe?”) was, and it was ostensibly released as a “commercial mixtape” to help fulfill Drake’s contract with Cash Money Records, although Views would also be released through the label in a year’s time.
mayhem
CERTIFIED
LOVER BOY
Should we blame Steph Curry for the delay of Drake’s long-awaited sixth album? After all, it was a knee injury and resulting rehab that prompted the 6 God to push back its release date after the two were seen exchanging jumpers in Drake’s home gym to waste away their quarantine hours. Perhaps Drake got a little too aggressive on a drive or wound up on the wrong end of one of Curry’s lethal crossovers. Either way, it was a major setback after Drake had teed up his latest with the insanely catchy “Laugh Now Cry Later” and a unique, Nike co-branded merch capsule in 2020.
However, by now, it should be apparent that Drake will always turn his setbacks into opportunities. With the additional time, he promoted his Nocta line of Nike apparel and promised fans that their hunger for new music would soon be satisfied. After over a decade of delivering on that promise, Drake has the goodwill, cultural capital, and track record to ensure that they’ll wait as long as they have to — and
2021
It'll be worth it.
SUPERSTAR
CERTIFIED
LOVER BOY
2021
Should we blame Steph Curry for the delay of Drake’s long-awaited sixth album? After all, it was a knee injury and resulting rehab that prompted the 6 God to push back its release date after the two were seen exchanging jumpers in Drake’s home gym to waste away their quarantine hours. Perhaps Drake got a little too aggressive on a drive or wound up on the wrong end of one of Curry’s lethal crossovers. Either way, it was a major setback after Drake had teed up his latest with the insanely catchy “Laugh Now Cry Later” and a unique, Nike co-branded merch capsule in 2020.
However, by now, it should
be apparent that Drake will always turn his setbacks into opportunities. With the additional time, he promoted his Nocta line of Nike apparel and promised fans that their hunger for new music would soon be satisfied. After over a decade of delivering on that promise, Drake has the goodwill, cultural capital,
and track record to ensure that they’ll wait as long as they
have to — and
It'll BE WORTH IT.
ad-lib driven mayhem