With the release of his eighth album, “For All The Dogs,” on Friday, the Canadian rapper hopes to further establish his status as a dominant pop culture artist. A place that was not won in advance for someone who goes beyond the codes usually attached to hip-hop.
Toronto, a metropolis in northeastern Canada of nearly 3 million inhabitants, which didn’t mean much. Barely the Toronto Raptors, the local basketball team playing in the NBA. But since the beginning of the 2010s, one man has changed everything. Aubrey Drake Graham, aka Drake, put the city on the world map. He even inherited a nickname: “6 God” (like the number of Canadian city districts).
At 36, the artist has become in a decade one of the biggest stars on the planet, author of hits like One Dance Or Bling Hotline. On Friday October 6, he released his eighth album, For All The Dogs. Listening records should rain again, Drake having made the habit of collecting them since his emergence in the early 2010s. Because the artist, to last, has always known how to evolve and feed on new trends to better popularize them . He also knew how to overcome the mockery that accompanied his beginnings.
He was a voice of revolution
Since its creation 50 years ago, hip-hop has not remained the preserve of black men who grew up in American ghettos. But still, being Canadian doesn’t give you a passport to glory. What’s more, when you’re Jewish, growing up in a rather upscale and quiet suburb of Toronto, your father was Jerry Lee Lewis’s drummer and you were an actor in a Canadian teen sitcom, Degrassi: The Next Generation. Aubrey Drake Graham therefore did not leave with all the cards in hand. He had “whatever it took to not be taken seriously, everyone took it as a joke”summarized in Society his biographer, Dalton Higgins.
And the main person concerned is aware of it. “There are jokes because of Degrassi, because I’m Canadian, because I make music for women. There are memes of guys crying to my music. I love these photos when I see them on Instagram”he summarized in 2014 with Rolling Stonefor one of his rare interviews.
When he ends his experience on the film set of Degrassi in 2009, after 145 episodes, Drake has already released two mixtapes that remained confidential. His RnB is not popular. He will therefore change formula under the leadership of his producer and partner Noah Shebib, another child actor, seen notably in Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola and nicknamed “40” because he allegedly worked tirelessly for 40 days and 40 nights to produce music.
In 2009, the tube was released Best I Ever Had. “At the end of the 2000s, we were coming out of a period where gangsta rap dominated, it brought a new lease of life”recalls for franceinfo Jok’Air, Parisian rapper from the group MZ and big fan of the Canadian.
“When I discovered it, I freaked out, it sounded like no one else. He revolutionized black American music.”
Jok’Air, rapperat franceinfo
“He invented, with ’40’, an airy RnB, a mix between ‘love rap’ and ‘punchy’ RnB”, theorizes for franceinfo Nicolas du Roy, editorial director of Spotify France. The title hits the mark and his first album, Thank Me Later, released immediately, which went platinum, confirms that the rise has begun. Will follow Take Care in 2011, which won the Grammy for best rap album, and Nothing Was The Same in 2013, which sold a million copies the week of its release.
Pain, gain
These two records anchor his place in the international musical landscape and establish “the sound of Toronto”, a city where the winter is harsh, dark and long. “It makes a certain sound.”summarizes the rapper with Rolling Stone. “There is a special atmosphere, it’s cold, icy”observes Jok’Air. “It’s hazy, melancholy and slow rap with RnB samples to bring emotion”completes Brice Bossavie, rap journalist who followed in the footsteps of the artist with Grégoire Belhoste for the magazine Society.
In a masterclass for German radio 1Live, in which he dissects pop hits, Canadian pianist Chilly Gonzales, who has collaborated several times with the rapper, explains that the title Hold on, We’re Going Homepresent on Nothing Was The Same, “is a pop masterpiece reminiscent of the musical impressionism of Claude Debussy.” “When the type of sounds used is more important than the notes played”he continues.
If the form is innovative, the substance is also different. Before Drake exploded, another popstar dynamited American rap. With 808s & Heartbreak, album conceived after a romantic breakup and the death of his mother, Kanye West took rap to new territories, which the Canadian will also explore. “He has a melancholic side and does not hesitate to talk about his sorrows”assures Jok’Air. “Drake democratized emotion and sadness in rap, by adding singing, by appearing sensitive and fragile.says Brice Bossavie.
In the magazine AudienceBritish academic Mark Fisher takes the analysis further: “Just like Drake, Kanye seems obsessed with the morbid exploration of the emptiness that reigns at the heart of hedonism pushed to the extreme. They are no longer motivated by what has always prevailed in hip-hop, namely consuming a maximum (both have long had everything they could want); Kanye and Drake vacillate between necessarily superficial pleasures with a mixture of frustration, anger and self-loathing, aware that something is missing, without be sure of what it is.”
The two-faced artist
So Aubrey Drake Graham is just a smoother rapper-crooner, therefore more relatable? Seventh most listened to artist in the world on Spotify (75 million monthly listeners currently), the rapper has an audience “more adult” And “more feminine” than other rappers, points out Nicolas du Roy. “It is consensual, but absolutely not smooth”, judges the director of the Swedish platform. Indeed, Drake was the protagonist of memorable clashes with other rap stars: Meek Mill, Pusha T or even… Kanye West. “It can be bloody, notes rapper Jok’Airand he can afford to flex his muscles because he’s successful.”
“Drake wants to maintain legitimacy in this environment. And to have a ‘bad boy’ image, you have to send pics to others.”
Brice Bossavie, rap journalistat franceinfo
He can also count on the support of unsavory people like J Prince, founder of the Houston label, Rap-a-Lot, “an industry figure who scares everyone”details Brice Bossavie.
For his music video Energy, long before the invention of the “deep fake” technique, Drake likes to stick his face on that of other personalities to make fun: Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, the boxer Floyd Mayweather or even Kanye West. Jules de Chateleux, founder of the audiovisual company Division which produced the video, says that there was “five or six other personalities, and not the least, but he preferred to cut them”.
The French producer paints a portrait of an artist “soft”, “completely manageable”, “polite and very respectful of talents”. “A nice boy who raps”, he summarizes. The Canadian didn’t even blame him when the producer, thinking it was a joke, hung up on him when they made contact.
A skilled communicator
More than ten years after his emergence, Drake has reached the heights of his art. He can finally satisfy his passion for swimming pools, he who confessed, always to the American magazine Rolling Stonedream “to have the largest residential swimming pool on the planet”. His Instagram and Twitter accounts are respectively followed by 143 million and 39 million subscribers.. “Even people who haven’t heard his music have heard of him, he knows how to occupy the media space”notes Brice Bossavie.
The artist masters the codes of communication. Her dance moves in the title video Bling Hotline have become memes, each album cover is scrutinized and dissected. That of Certified Lover Boy, thought up by British artist Damien Hirst, with 12 emojis of pregnant women, was mocked, noted GQ in 2021. Just like that of For All The Dogsdrawn by Adonis, his 5-year-old son.
The artist does not lack second degree either, as shown by some of his appearances on “Saturday Night Live”, the cult comedy show in the United States. Enough in any case to afford, for $6,000, a work by the American artist Patrick Martinez where it is written “Less Drake, More Tupac” (“less Drake, more Tupac”), to make fun of the Canadian’s not-enough-gangsta-rap. “I love itassures the artist about this painting in The Hollywood Reporter. People are entitled to their opinion, but I’d rather have that opinion here than anywhere else.”
The Prince of the City
Drake can also act as an incubator for current musical trends. Rap and RnB of course, but also electro, afrotrap and even raggaeton. Some detractors accuse him of appropriating them and making artists invisible. “He is very good at sensing trends and integrating them into his music, enlightens Brice Bossavie. He takes from all these new genres, but often gives back by offering his visibility to a few artists.” Thus, the trio of rappers from Atlanta Migos, very well known in the United States, reached a milestone in popularity with the participation of the Canadian on the title Versace. British singer Jorja Smith’s career also received a boost after her duet with Drake on Get it together. The Canadians who make up the group Majid Jordan or The Weeknd also benefited from this showcase in their early days.
“When a popular artist with credibility brings a sound that you’re not used to hearing, it helps popularize it.”
Nicolas du Roy, editorial director of Spotify Franceat franceinfo
A credibility that served Apple well when it launched its streaming service, Apple Music. “Drake almost single-handedly helped us become culturally relevant from the day we launched [en 2015]“abounds Robert Kondrk, vice president of applications and multimedia content at Apple Music, in The Hollywood Reporter.
First supporter of the NBA franchise Raptors – he systematically appears in the front row at his team’s home games – Drake became so influential in Toronto that the mayor handed him the keys to the city in February 2016. “It seemed legitimate to me to grant him this recognition. Drake has an international stature, he is a source of inspiration for young people here, and he gives a lot to the city”justifies former mayor John Tory in Society. He even sat on the CN Tower, the emblem of the metropolis, for the album cover Viewsreleased the same year. Being at the top, Drake has definitely gotten used to it.