Drake’s Fader Magazine Feature

From a child actor to a well received rapper who looks up to Lil Wayne as one of the best rappers in the game, Drake emerged on the scene with vengance and took his place in hip hop genre without looking back.

With only a mixtape released and a debut album on the way, he has a lucrative record deal and praises from some the legends in the rap game.

So who is this Drake aka Drizzy from Canada? He reveals just that to Fader magazine in a featured piece in the latest edition of this magazine.


Excerpts..

Who is Drake?

The differences only get starker if you compare Drake’s bio to his project-raised, tattooed and codeine-addicted mentor. Though born in Memphis, Aubrey Drake Graham was raised in Forest Hills, an affluent enclave of Toronto that is about as far in mood and geography from New Orleans as you could get without a land bridge. Before he ever considered being a rapper, Drake was a child actor, portraying athlete Jimmy Brooks on the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. His father, Dennis Graham, was a drummer for Jerry Lee Lewis, and he is nephew to both legendary bassist Larry Graham and Teenie Hodges—a guitarist best known for co-writing some of Al Green’s ’70s classics who’s played with everyone from Talking Heads to Cat Power.

The more you know about him, in fact, the harder it seems to know exactly who Drake is. There is something almost chameleon-like about his talent. If his appeal can’t be contained to a one-liner like “Wayne protégé,” it’s only because he invites a whole series of comparisons: to Wayne’s inventiveness, Kanye’s art-school eclecticism, Jay-Z’s braggadocio and Lloyd’s post-Kelly singsong. Though he reps Toronto, in interviews Drake has even said that a childhood split between his father’s base in Memphis and his mother’s house in Canada has allowed him to escape the territorial matrix of rap. He’s parlayed this “from everywhere” quality into a burgeoning career as a guest verse specialist, always adjusting his approach to the demands of the host organism, a strategy that makes you wonder which Drake will step out on his own debut LP—slated to drop before the end of the year—a project that’s not recorded yet but already titled Thank Me Later.

Rich Kid With Normal Problems

“Well I have always sorta been alone in my world,” he starts off. “I have great relationships with my parents and stuff, but I’ve never really been connected to anything, and it caused me to think a lot.” We talk about the relationship that first provoked him to try singing and his Memphis cousin’s obsession with Usher; about his misfit status amongst the rich kids of the Forest Hills high school where he lasted exactly one year, the biracial kid with the single mom and the dad “who was more like a little brother.” We talk about what aspects he drew from each: his father’s “overcool, Shaft-like personality,” his mom’s ambition, her generosity.

To read the interview in its entirety click here.

Related Eartodastreetz

• PIC: Drake’s Fader Magazine Photoshoot
• Drake Covers Fader Magazine
• Aaliyah Covers Fader Magazine
• Drake Performs Headlines x The Motto Live @ NHL 2012 All Star Game
• Tuesday: Album Releases