Drake

Aubrey Drake Graham (born October 24, 1986), known mononymously as Drake, is a Canadian rapper and singer.

An influential figure in contemporary popular music, he has been credited with popularizing R&B sensibilities in hip hop artists.

Aubrey Drake Graham was born on October 24, 1986, in Toronto, Ontario.

His father, Dennis Graham, is an African-American drummer from Memphis who once performed with musician Jerry Lee Lewis.

His mother, Sandra "Sandi" Graham ( Sher), is a Canadian Ashkenazi Jew, who worked as an English teacher and florist.

Graham performed at Club Bluenote in Toronto, where he met Sandra, who was in attendance.

Drake is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, the former derived from Graham.

In his youth, he attended a Jewish day school and became a bar mitzvah.

Drake's parents divorced when he was five years old.

After the divorce, he and his mother remained in Toronto; his father returned to Memphis, where he was incarcerated for a number of years on drug-related charges.

Graham's limited finances and legal issues caused him to remain in the U.S. until Drake's early adulthood.

Prior to his arrest, Graham would travel to Toronto and bring Drake to Memphis every summer.

Graham claimed in an interview that Drake's assertions of him being an absent father were embellishments used to sell music, which Drake vehemently denies.

Drake was raised in two neighbourhoods.

He lived on Weston Road in Toronto's working-class west end until grade six and attended Weston Memorial Junior Public School until grade four, playing minor hockey with the Weston Red Wings.

Drake was a promising right winger, reaching the Upper Canada College hockey camp, but left at the behest of his mother following a vicious cross-check to his neck during a game by an opposing player.

At age 10, Drake appeared in a comedic sketch which aired during the 1997 NHL Awards, featuring a riff of Martin Brodeur and Ron Hextall and their record as being the only goalies to have scored multiple goals.

He attended Forest Hill Collegiate Institute for high school, and attended Vaughan Road Academy in Toronto's multicultural Oakwood–Vaughan neighbourhood; Drake described Vaughan Road Academy as "not by any means the easiest school to go to."

He moved to one of the city's affluent neighbourhoods, Forest Hill, in 2000.

When asked about the move, Drake replied, "[We had] a half of a house we could live in. The other people had the top half, we had the bottom half. I lived in the basement, my mom lived on the first floor. It was not big, it was not luxurious. It was what we could afford."

Gaining recognition by starring as Jimmy Brooks in the CTV teen drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001–08), Drake pursued a recording career in 2006, releasing his debut mixtape Room for Improvement in February of that year.

He followed up with the mixtapes Comeback Season (2007) and So Far Gone (2009) before signing with Young Money Entertainment.

Each of Drake's albums have topped the US Billboard 200 and Canadian Albums Chart; his first three, Thank Me Later (2010), Take Care (2011) and Nothing Was the Same (2013) were met with critical and commercial success, propelling him to the forefront of hip hop.

As an entrepreneur, Drake founded the OVO Sound record label with longtime collaborator 40 in 2012.

In 2013, he became the "global ambassador" of the Toronto Raptors, joining their executive committee and later obtaining naming rights to their practice facility OVO Athletic Centre.

Known for frequent accompanying releases to his albums, he achieved critical and commercial success with the mixtapes If You're Reading This It's Too Late (2015) and More Life (2017).

His fourth album, Views (2016), saw exploration of dancehall and stood atop the Billboard 200 for 13 non-consecutive weeks—making it the first album by a male artist to do so in over a decade—and featured the international hit singles "Hotline Bling" and "One Dance" (featuring WizKid and Kyla); the latter has been credited with helping the popularization of the dancehall and Afrobeats genres in contemporary pop music.

In 2016, he began collaborating with Brent Hocking on the bourbon whiskey Virginia Black.

Drake heads the OVO fashion label and the Nocta collaboration with Nike, and founded the production company DreamCrew and the fragrance house Better World.

In 2018, he released the double album Scorpion, which contained the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "God's Plan", "Nice for What", and "In My Feelings".

Drake's sixth album, Certified Lover Boy (2021), achieved nine top 10 hits on the Hot 100, briefly setting the record for most US top-ten hits from one album, with its lead single "Way 2 Sexy" (featuring Future and Young Thug) reaching number one.

In 2022, he released the house-inspired album Honestly, Nevermind and the collaborative album, Her Loss, with 21 Savage.

Drake's eighth album, For All the Dogs (2023) yielded the number-one singles "Slime You Out" (featuring SZA) and "First Person Shooter" (featuring J. Cole), with which he tied Michael Jackson for the most number-one singles by a male solo artist.

In 2018, he was reportedly responsible for 5 percent (CAD$440 million) of Toronto's CAD$8.8 billion annual tourism income.

In 2022, he obtained partial ownership of Italian soccer club A.C. Milan.

Among the world's best-selling music artists, with over 170 million records sold, Drake is ranked as the highest-certified digital singles artist in the United States by the RIAA.

He has won five Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, 39 Billboard Music Awards, two Brit Awards, and three Juno Awards.

He has achieved 13 number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 (14 counting "Sicko Mode") and holds further Hot 100 records, including the most top 10 singles (76), and the most charted songs (321).

From 2018 to 2023, Drake held the record for the most simultaneously charted songs in one week (27), the most Hot 100 debuts in one week (22); and held the most continuous time on the Hot 100 (431 weeks).

He additionally has the most number-one singles on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, Hot Rap Songs, and Rhythmic Airplay charts.