Drake Takes J. Cole on Summer Amphitheatre Tour : March 23, 2012

Drake wrapped up the first leg of his “Club Paradise Tour” just a week ago, and now has announced that he will start the tour back up in May and play an additional 27 [...]

Drake Takes to Arenas, College Campuses for Spring Tour : December 14, 2011

Canadian rapper and actor Drake will embark on a headlining tour next winter that will take him around North America playing arenas and college campuses. Dubbed the Club [...]

drake Biography

Drake is a Canadian hip-hop/R&B singer/songwriter best known for hits like ‘Best I Ever Had’ and ‘Forever’, his first no.1 single in the US Rap charts which also featured Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West and Eminem. After only two years in the business, he has charted five top 10 singles in the Billboard 100 and four no.1 singles in the Billboard Rap charts, has twice topped the Billboard 200 with his records ‘Thank Me Later’ (2010) and ‘Take Care’ (2011) and has earned nine Grammy nominations.

Born Aubrey Drake Graham on October 24, 1986, Drake was raised by an African American father hailing from Memphis and a Jewish Canadian mother. Born and raised in Toronto, Drake comes from a family of musicians, as his father, Dennis Graham, was a drummer who once worked with rockabilly icon Jerry Lee Lewis, and his two uncles, Larry Graham and Terry Hodges, also played music during their younger years. He had to live back and forth in Toronto and Memphis following his parents’ divorce, an event that forced him to deal with life struggles from the early age of five. In an interview with entertainment website Neon Limelight, he spoke of his abrupt transition and growth following the divorce and how it drew him much closer to his mother, “I had to become a man very quickly and be the backbone for a woman who I love with all my heart, my mother," he said. In high school, he found interest in the performing arts and in 2001, he embarked on an acting career in his native Canada via the show ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation’ as the character Jimmy Brooks, where he appeared in 138 episodes in a span of eight years.

After his eight-year stint with ‘Degrassi’, Drake began focusing on his music career. Even before wrapping up work on the Canadian teen drama franchise, he began recording mixtapes which he uploaded on his MySpace page, the most famous of which is ‘So Far Gone’, his first official EP released under Universal Motown and Lil’ Wayne’s own label, Young Money Entertainment. The release charted at no.6 at the Billboard 200 and spawned the singles ‘Best I Ever Had’ and ‘Successful’ featuring Trey Songz. His other previously released mixtapes are 2006’s ‘Room for Improvement’ and 2007’s ‘Comeback Season’ which spawned the single ‘Replacement Girl’, the video for which earned Drake better mainstream popularity after gaining constant airplay on BET.

Even before landing a recording deal with a major label, Drake has garnered considerable success in the mainstream music market, for aside from recording with the biggest names in hip-hop and R&B such as Kanye West, DJ Khaled, Timbaland, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Young Money and Jay-Z, he also wrote songs for Alicia Keys, Jamie Foxx and Dr. Dre. In 2010, he released his first official full-length album entitled ‘Thank Me Later’. The album went to no.1 and was certified platinum in North America and featured the singles ‘Over’, ‘Find Your Love’, ‘Miss Me’ featuring Lil’ Wayne, and ‘Fancy’ featuring Timbaland and Swizz Beatz. His second release, ‘Take Care’, which also went to no.1 in both Canada and the US, also featured collaborations with other artists from the genre, such as Nicki MInaj for the track ‘Make Me Proud’, Rihanna (which he reportedly dated in 2010) for the titular track, and once again with Lil’ Wayne for ‘The Motto’.

He is expected to release his third full-length studio effort in 2012 entitled ‘It’s Never Enough’.