when he first came in the game I knew he was gonna be the next biggest thing the
only person that put on for me when I ain't have nobody trick Drake is always
gonna be in my big races because he did something I will never forget what
everything draping like tracking that radio single real quick in Drake's mind
yeah about my son the fact that it's people thinking that my wife and you're
not saying nothing and you caring it like that I don't sit well with my
spirit check the genius despite me disrespect them as a man I spent career
the further we get the more you forget the early stages now if that intro gave
you goosebumps let me know by hitting that like button now Aubrey Drake Graham
he lived two lives during the school year he would be living with his mom in
an upscale Toronto neighborhood and during the summer he was living with his
dad in the rough and tough streets of Memphis Tennessee now is this kind of
diversity that gave the shy Canadian kid a unique perspective on life not to
share this insight through music he simply needed to find the right push
from someone experienced that was during his father's incarceration that Drake
would be introduced to a cellmate by the name of poverty and this would be a man
that would help push Drake through the door yeah I got a feel in this part of
the story you haven't heard before and with the 2010s coming to a close
literally the end of an era well arguably one of the biggest stars of
this generation has got to be Drizzy Drake no sense of merging onto the
mainstream music scene around 2009 well no celebrity has had quite the prolific
rise to fame as the Toronto rapper whose shirt I'm currently rocking now if the
man once said himself they just bad cuz I got the Midas touch
now in many ways this is true pretty much everything he touches it
turns into gold or should I say platinum with five albums six big stage 35 Grammy
nods and over your record label his own music festival restaurants is a whiskey
line and some dope merch well he's pretty much got it up he's even got a
few catchphrases 6if the Toronto yeah it derives from like with our area codes
for one six we were debating on the for you know then I just went tail-end on
them I went six one can only guess what the next decade has in store for Aubrey
grant no today we're gonna look back at the man behind the fame and I got to
give Drake's and major thanks because our earlier videos on him really helped
launch this channel and this time while we're rolling out the red carpet because
I want to give him a good review I don't need no tree no forest you know I'm
saying three out of ten for sure you know
Siskel and Ebert ting doc trust me you can't just lost with that 10 bro
what's going on guys did you boy Michael cretin documenting the life and career
of drag prior to Fame here for you of course some before they are famous and
this is an epic bio now you guys seem to enjoy these updates and we want to
always take things to the next level and we've done ethics on the likes at cardi
B Eminem and Billie Eilish that's just named it a few we need you to let us
know who to do next in the comments down below
whoa Toronto in the 80s wasn't known for a whole lot while this Canadian city did
boast an oppressive hockey team and assumed to be amazing baseball squad
it wasn't exactly tourist central in fact famous entertainers the likes of
Jim Carrey Avril Lavigne Mike Myers and eventually Justin Bieber they had to
move south of the border to actually make it an entertainment before drank it
seemed like a relatively unknown city on the global scene it's known for its Ian
Tower sure it's harsh winters the four one six area code and a few television
shows and if you think I'm gonna say Degrassi we're not at that part of the
story just yet it was that Club Blue Note with Dennis Graham an African
American musician had finished the show with his band when he first laid eyes on
sandy a girl of Jewish Canadian descent now the two they hit it off and they
eventually married giving birth to their son Aubrey Drake Graham at st. Michael's
Hospital on October 24th 1986 and from a young age Aubrey had a tough time
fitting in at school due to his mixed ethnicity is the only student of black
and Jewish heritage out of school well you'd have to be taunted with racial
slurs for other kids in fact he stated I went to a Jewish school where nobody
understood what it was like to be black and Jewish when kids are young it's hard
for them to understand the makeup of religion and race despite the adversity
he faced outside of the home well Drake he was shown unconditional love for both
of his parents now in Aubrey was just little his father would bring him up on
stage to play the tambourine he would also sit down on recording sessions
between Dennis and T V Hodges so guitars from Tennessee as well as Drake's late
uncle Drake also reportedly gave his old man five bucks and bet Dennis that he
would make more movies and music that he ever did I guess he wasn't that bad now
according to a source Drake he also may have taken up tap lessons as a child
although this never has been confirmed now I'm not trying to help the man so
I'll give one up myself as a kid I was a I was a professional Irish dancer the
things at home they started to fall apart for Dennis and sandy turbulence
between that resulted in their eventual divorce in 1991
returning to Memphis Ville Dennis soon after he found himself in jail on some
drug charges there Drake has stated that during his youth his father was
incarcerated on a few occasions another divorce I left five year old
Aubree in the Carib is now single sandi an english teacher by trade well
sandy did her best to provide for her only son now during this time they lived
in a low-income neighborhood off of Weston Road in Toronto's West End sandy
did everything she could to foster her young boys interests with him trying a
little bit of everything and being you know Canadian well it's mandatory for
all of us to do a little bit of ice hockey you know I actually went to I
went to hockey camp at UCC Upper Canada College I mean you got to be alright you
got to be decent to go there yeah or else that just embarrass yourself but
there's some really talented kids that at 10 years old he played on a local
team known as the Western Lions there's reason to believe that this team they
may have switched their name to the Western Red Wings at some point but
nevertheless he's rumored to have been quite skilled now you can see 11 year
old Aubrey flexing his skills in a commercial for table hockey this was
certainly not Drake's only experience on the small screen no drinks mom she
signed him up for modeling as well as acting auditions when he was just five
years old but we'll have more on that in just a second yeah I'm not doing that
again doing what I'm not waiting for you while
you smash are you really is this really what's going on this is a serious face
yes you're just getting your spinning on drinks bet his childhood on Weston Road
growing accustomed to life in Toronto no one like Montreal or Niagara Falls
Toronto was not the number one choice for outsiders to visit besides a few
bars restaurants and local music acts stopping by
it wasn't really you know a place where music was bragged about certainly not
for rap now the last international rapper to come out of the city was snow
yeah remember him it wasn't until the mid 90s when the young kid from the West
End well he would begin his first ever Toronto love affair ladies and gentlemen
the Raptors are born the Toronto Raptors came to town in 1995 the city's first
official NBA team and people from the greater toronto area they would flock to
the sky dome to watch Toronto's newly arrived Stars hit the core no Drake he
developed a love for the team as well as a lifelong passion for
board a basketball no Drake would eventually move with his mother into a
basement of a townhouse in Forest Hill an upper-class Jewish community close to
the city's downtown well the surroundings were slightly
better than the West End well drink he still had difficult time fitting in at
school while attending Forest Hill collegiate so who you got Pete yeah now
he states that as he got older he would often go to social events and house
parties and he'd get goofed on by other kids now despite this garbage from
people friends of his they knew there was something special about good old
Drizzy drag we're back in the day Aubrey this funny kid with a red jumpsuit sat
next to me he had that strange personality ratio of different
characteristics he showed off a hilarious sense of humor that people
certainly haven't forgotten now one friend were calls him coming over as a
kid and placing tinfoil around his parents wine bottle and then took a
magic marker and labeled the bottle Christophe now this type of charisma
will it would mask his mounting stress from troubles on the homefront I'll make
you look damaged I bought the bloody thing
because the line up with incredible Drake's mom would develop rheumatoid
arthritis which forced her to go on disability
now Aubrey's perspective on life it wasn't limited to Toronto each summer
Drake he would travel down to Memphis Tennessee to live with his dad and it
was here that his environment it would change drastically often ranked among
America's most dangerous cities not to mention having a tense history of racism
while Memphis was like a completely different world to the kid from Canada
staying on Apple Ville Street near Shelby Drive and Neely Drake he gained
exposure to the grittier side of urban life at the same time he would discover
more about the true importance of his family's heritage that was tied from his
father playing drums the Grahams they have a rich history of music well it's
well documented that Denis played in a band alongside Jerry Lee Lewis to his
uncles are also known Memphis musicians Larry Graham was a bass player for the
soul funk van Sly and the Family Stone and teenie Hodges was a guitarist and
songwriter for Al Green now if you think that's enough of a
legacy it doesn't stop there his grandmother she used to babysit
Aretha Franklin right now my mind's blown as well now Drake you would often
visit the legendary Royal studios on Willie Mitchell Boulevard where music
icons including Chuck Berry Buddy Guy and Keith Richards have recorded in the
past Drake began dabbling with writing his
own music in a notebook an admirer of popular rappers including jay-z
and believe it or not push a t that was expression it came in the form of hip
hop and his uncle well even took him to his first PDD
concert in Toronto when he was a teenager although this was a hobby Drake
still kind of kept to himself on the acting front Drake he appeared in
several short films commercials and ads in 2001 Drake landed the role of
wheelchair-bound Jimmy Brooks on the Canadian TV series Degrassi the next
generation done some research medical options yeah that's why I made a doctor
supply actually once upon a time I was background actor on that enough about me
back to Drake Jake would stay on the program for six years he even dropped
out of school at fifteen to focus on acting and to provide for him and his
mother then we attended vonroenn Academy at the time and his class schedule it
proved to be too hectic to maintain you know alongside his acting career
seriously what you needed some sleep cuz it's obvious you're not getting enough
oxygen to your brain Aubree's character of Jimmy was no doubt
one of the more popular of that error but his true passion
alight elsewhere and he began growing tired of the acting life he realized
that his true potential it lay more music now how did this come to be well
remember how we talked about Dennis Graham's legal troubles well he had
quite a few of them in fact Drake he's even recalled watching his father get
arrested after coming home from Memphis well during one of his father's
incarceration Sabri he had an unusual correspondence he stated my dad went to
jail for like a year I don't even know what he was in jail for an assault
charge or a drug charge or something when he was in there he had a cellmate
who used to rap but he had nobody to talk to I was probably 14 the guy was
probably 21 my dad was like my son likes to rap
i'ma let you rap for him i'ma share my phone with you I'm gonna pass you the
phone and here's my cell mate say what's up to him the man on the other end of
the phone was a rapper named poverty and he would spit rhymes to the teen over
the phone now this big dre comfortable enough to
share material he had written throughout the course of Dennis's incarceration
will drink in poverty they exchanged bribes over the phone several times and
this experience had helped the performer to come out of his shell as for poverty
fate well Drake doesn't exactly know what happened to him no hip-hop at this
point was changing with the culture and there were several artists gaining
prominence in the new era one of them was little Lane who was enjoying solo
success with his Carter franchise as well as the collaboration album with
Birdman I've been a mess since every girl I left went and got a new man but
I'm the new version of Fresh Prince a February 14 2006 20 year old Aubrey
Graham he dropped room for improvement now the 22 track mixtape was produced in
part by Toronto beat maker boi-1da first stage name the MC decided he'd keep it
authentic and go away his middle name Drake room for improvement wasn't
exactly a chart topper by the end of the year it only sold over six thousand
copies know Drake he would also put his music online building a myspace page for
people to visit and listen to his bangers however this was only made you
know like on a whim I'll serve through the grapevine that Drake would fly out
to New York City you need to hang around local clubs comedy clubs he'd be
networking he was looking to get ahead but people weren't betting on the kid
who was on Degrassi the failure of his first mixtape only seen the fuel is
hunger for success by 2007 he left two Grassi to focus on music full-time
however you can still feel the effects of wheelchair jimmy long after leaving
nobody of Toronto's rap figures they were skeptical of Chris's talents paying
out of his own pocket well Drake shot the music video for a replacement girl
the lead single off his second mixtape appropriately titled comeback season so
many ways to look corny in the music video so getting on Cameron like trying
to look cool is like a whole different story featuring vocals by Trey Songz
replacement girl proved to be a winner not only in Toronto but south of the
border though the track was named BET's join in the month while comeback season
it's didn't make it onto any charts
replacement girl and show the industry with Drake was cable off he was now
looking like a viable contender for the Toronto hip-hop throne but he still up
he hadn't been signed to a label with replacement girl making the rounds and
eventually caught the ear of Houston bass to jazz Prince now jazz whose
father is accomplished rap-a-lot records CEO Jay Prince well he wanted his son to
find a new artist he could possibly signs the label combing the internet he
stumbled upon Drake's MySpace page and blown away by what he heard well Josh he
reached out I like your music he was like okay off like I'm gonna make you
famous he was like I hear that a lot did you would communicate online with
jazz Prince sending a beats to rap over and while Drizzy held up his end and
delivered Jazz's father he wasn't a fan with jay printz passing it seemed like
there wasn't much hope for Drake's career now the kid from Toronto had
struggled for acceptance his entire life he'd moved from place to place
he finally bursted all leaving his cozy acting gig on the top of that his
girlfriend they just ended the relationship
now having blown several opportunities at success it's starting to feel like
this was the end for Drake in November of 2008 drink decided headed to his
local barbershop one day to get a fresh cut and while we don't know for sure we
got a good feeling this was that Prince cut Kings which is on Toronto's Danforth
Avenue we know for sure that Drake was once upon the time a client now getting
a fresh cut his phone then began ringing and the phone rang I picked it up and is
that yellow is that I was like this doesn't sound like my friend and he's
that yellow SAP is way Z at the time Lil Wayne was at the top of his game he had
recently released the Carter three as it turns out after J Prince turned down
Drake well jazz went to Weezy who at first
hated what he heard then after a car ride listening to Drake's a milli remix
well he changed his mind and instantly wanted to contact him and have him fly
out to Houston to meet him Drake grabbed his passport and flew out
the very next day landing in h-town will Drizzy described feeling that he had
finally got his swagger back I know what you get dumped it takes a little
time to recover but then when we Z comes along there's no looking back now we
stayed 21st met Wayne well he was getting the most painful tattoo ever I'm
guessing if that was on his face in February of 2009 Drake dropped so far
gone his third mixtape featuring appearances
not only from Weezy but Trey Songz Lloyd and bun be different included the single
best I ever had which that summer it blew up the radio I just hear a good old
Canada it was everywhere also the girl in the intro to that Wow
drink has gone out to make both of his parents extremely proud and he's placed
Toronto on the map not just for a hip hop literally you put your honour on the
map globally the six everyone knows that he now holds the ovo fest every summer
by the cities of Theriault place and he's paved the way for several other
Toronto artists who have come up after him this includes tory lanez and kilee
now all these all our amazing accomplishments the cherry on top of
this success is perhaps becoming global ambassador for his beloved tronto
Raptors the team annually celebrates Drake night at the Scotiabank arena I
think I've actually been there once I've actually seen Drake at a game I don't
think that was Drake night anyway
as for the rest of the story well you sure as hell know the story cuz we've
all watched it happen and that's all I've got for you here
because this is before they're famous and it was epic and took a lot of work I
hope you guys enjoyed it now do us a favor and send this video to Drake via
Instagram or Twitter if we got a retweet if we get a like I could retire I feel
like I've done everything I need to do but of course there'll be more to do
but I'll just die happy or I'll retire happy you know in this again thanks the
candy pens they're our sponsor I'll see you guys in another video