DRAKE FACTS:
Genre: R&B, Hip Hop
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario
Albums: Thank Me Later (2010), Take Care (2011)
Awards:
Hits: "Best I Ever Had," "Successful," "Forever," "Over," "Miss Me," "Fancy"
Other: Started his carrer as an actor and starred in Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Aubrey Drake Graham, better known simply as Drake, may have begun his career has a television star, but he has worked his way up to one of the most popular artists on the radio today. Thanks to his work with a long list of famous names, Drake has become a mainstay in the music industry and the 24-year-old Canadian shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Drake got his start in 2001 when he landed the role of Jimmy Brooks in the successful Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. He played the role for eight years until his character graduated from high school in 2009, at which point he had already begun to establish himself as a force in the music world.
Drake began to test the waters of a music career in 2006 when he released a mixtape on MySpace. He did the same in 2007, and enjoyed considerably more success. Though the video for his collaboration with Trey Songz, "Replacement Girl," earned play on BET, Drake still wasn't signed to a record label. After Lil Wayne heard some of his songs, the pair recorded several songs together and it wasn't long before Drake was making a name for himself.
After he made his third mixtape, So Far Gone, available for free download in February 2009, the still unsigned Drake enjoyed new found levels of success. Two singles from the release, "Best I Ever Had" and the aptly titled "Successful," received substantial radio play. Following the popularity of So Far Gone, Drake has worked with a long list of well-established artists including Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Jay-Z and Eminem.
"Best I Ever Had" peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and Drake was finally signed to a record deal in the summer of 2009.
Drake's debut album, Thank Me Later, was released in June 2010 and was an immediate success. The album featured a number of famous contributions, most notably from Lil Wayne in the song "Miss Me." Thanks to hits such as "Find Your Love" and "Over," the album debuted at number one and sold 447,000 copies its first week.
With so much success in so little time, one would think Drake would take a break, but nothing could be farther from the truth. He announced that his second album,
Take Care, will drop in spring 2011.