Drake Continues His Five Year Domination of the Hip-Hop Industry Touring and Preparing for his Next Album: Views From the 6

Aubrey Graham Continues His Obsessive Grind

Since cat­a­pult­ing from Degras­si’s “Wheel­chair Jim­my” to the hottest young name in hip-hop dur­ing the win­ter of 2008–2009 and soon after on to super­star­dom, Cana­di­an rap­per Drake is far from ready to leave the pub­lic eye.  Since the release of his third stu­dio album Noth­ing Was the Same on Sep­tem­ber 20, 2013 Drake has com­plet­ed both an inter­na­tion­al and the major­i­ty of coun­try­wide tour in less than a year. Drake began his ten­u­ous jour­ney with the cre­ative­ly named tour Would You Like a Tour? on Octo­ber 18th last fall. After per­form­ing at 38 venues across the Unit­ed States Drake prompt­ly trav­eled across the Atlantic to per­form 23 shows through­out Europe. The tour was mod­est­ly prof­itable, rak­ing in a 48.3 mil­lion dol­lars. After tak­ing sev­er­al months off to record for his upcom­ing album Views From the 6 Drake hit the road again on August 8, 2014 with his men­tor Lil Wayne on the Drake vs. Lil Wayne Tour. When the tour ends on the 27th of Sep­tem­ber the duo will have vis­it­ed 31 cities. Drake, who is known to gross close to half a mil­lion dol­lars per per­for­mance, will have com­plet­ed 92 shows in less than a year, mak­ing him one of the most prof­itable musi­cians on the plan­et in 2014.

Toron­to Native Drake May be the Most Unex­pect­ed Hip-Hop Pow­er of All-Time

In 2007 Aubrey “Drake” Gra­ham was known vague­ly across Cana­da for his reoc­cur­ring role as the para­plegic Jim­my Brooks on the Cana­di­an teen dra­ma Degras­si. His obses­sion, record­ing and study­ing music, was a habit known by few. He lived pri­mar­i­ly with his moth­er in Toron­to but would often endure the 15 hour dri­ve to Mem­phis to vis­it his estranged father in Mem­phis, TN. Quit­ting high school for green­er pas­tures in 2006 at the age of 19 Gra­ham released his debut mix­tape Room for Improve­ment to lit­tle suc­cess or accli­ma­tion. Bal­anc­ing act­ing and a ten­u­ous rela­tion­ship with his moth­er Drake remained in the stu­dio spend­ing the major­i­ty of the mon­ey he pos­sessed to cre­ate his sec­ond mix­tape Come­back Sea­son. His sec­ond release gar­nered the atten­tion of New Orleans rap­per Lil Wayne who after hear­ing the tape’s first three songs called Drake and imme­di­ate­ly flew the 22-year old artist out to Hous­ton. Drake impressed quick­ly and under the close influ­ence of his new­found men­tor he released his third mix­tape So Far Gone on Feb­ru­ary 13, 2009. The mix­tape would catch the atten­tion of the entire Unit­ed States. Emo­tion­al­ly intrigu­ing songs such as Suc­cess­ful and the hit sin­gle Best I Ever Had quick­ly made So Far Gone the most down­loaded mix­tape of all-time. It was down­loaded over a mil­lion times cement­ing Gra­ham into hip-hop’s next big star.

Drake Meets Superstardom

Gra­ham dug into record­ing his debut album Thank Me Lat­er in 2009. The release date was pushed back after Drake torn his ACL live on stage in ear­ly August 2009. As hype built regard­ing the album’s sound, Thank Me Lat­er became the most antic­i­pat­ed debut album in rap his­to­ry. It did not dis­ap­point debut­ing at 1 on the Bill­board 200 and sell­ing 447,000 copies in its first week, lat­er becom­ing Gram­my nom­i­nat­ed. Over 1.5 mil­lion copies of the album were even­tu­al­ly sold. How­ev­er, crit­ics began to doubt Gra­ham’s cred­i­bil­i­ty as a rap­per. His emo­tion­al lyrics along­side his singing on each track led some to ques­tion if Drake would ever be as good as pre­dict­ed. He answered crit­ics loud­ly in the fall of 2011. Gra­ham released his sec­ond stu­dio album Take Care on Novem­ber 15, 2011. It would sell 631,000 copies and its first week even­tu­al­ly being pur­chased over 2 mil­lion times. Songs such as Mar­vins Room and HYFR dis­played Drake’s ver­sa­til­i­ty, a style that was ground­break­ing in its nature. Crit­ics agreed with the pub­lic’s per­cep­tion. Take Care would be named Best Rap Album of 2013  (con­fus­ing to me con­sid­er­ing the album was released in 2011 — all Gram­my awards are assert­ed into this for­mat) win­ning Drake his first Gram­my. After tour­ing for the album was com­plete Drake began work on his third album Noth­ing Was the Same in late 2012. The afore­men­tioned album would become anoth­er hit sell­ing 658,000 copies in its first week. The sin­gles Start­ed From the Bot­tom and Hold On, We’re Going Home would become some of the most lis­tened to songs on the plan­et in 2013.

Views From the 6

When Gra­ham fin­ish­es his sum­mer tour on the 27th of this month he will focus all of his atten­tion to his fourth stu­dio album Views From the 6. The “6” refers to Drake’s home­town of Toron­to. The album is set to be released in the Spring of 2015. In the past few months Drake has been seen work­ing with Kanye West, Chris Brown, and the man who brought him into the spot­light — Lil Wayne. If Drake can some­how sur­pass the suc­cess of his first three albums with Views From the 6 he will enter him­self into the debate of being one of the great­est rap­pers of all-time.

-Dal­ton Zbierski