LOS ANGELES – This is the one moment that pretty much summarized Drake’s utterly unforgettable, over-the-top Christmas season.
No, the pinnacle of Aubrey “Drake” Graham’s surreal 2009 had to be when the 23-year-old received a profanity-laced congratulatory message for his Grammy nods from none other than … his mother.
“My mother just texted me a bunch of swear words. So I believe she was excited,” Drake laughed during his interview with CNN after the Grammy nomination ceremony.
Drake then whipped out his iPhone to show the perennial international news leader what his mother texted him verbatim. “OMFG! I can’t f—— believe it!’ Drake’s mother wrote. “We’re all bugging out!”
The whole industry has been bugging out ever since Canada’s biggest-ever rap export inspired one of the wildest bidding wards the music industry has witnessed in the modern era. The single, “Best I Ever Had,eeee” has been ubiquitous on radio stations and Internet music sites and brought Drake a level of fame he never could have fathomed, much less scripted like one of his acting roles. Despite all that, Drake is still hopin
g to get the ultimate Christmas prize: a duet with legendary soul singer Sade.
While he waits for that final member of music’s royalty to come whipping through on a sled, perhaps wielding a Top 10 hit to slide into his Christmas stocking, Drake took time out of his hectic schedule to give a holiday treat to scores of wanton women when he pulled up at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in South Central Los Angeles recently. The philanthropic-minded Drake encouraged people to bring unwrapped toys to the popular L.A. mall in exchange for an autographed photo of him.
“I’m happy to be involved in anything that can make kids smile — or adults for that matters … it’s great. I love L.A.,” he says. “I don’t really get to do events out here. It’s like the first charitable event I’ve done out here and yeah, it’s Christmas time, and kids need the toys, they need to smile. And it’s important when you’re young. I mean, if my face is what can get people out here [to] bring some toys, then so be [it]. I’ll be here every time I can.”
Despite the positive things flowing through his life from different directions, all is not well on the home front. Drake knows that he has to return to his musical bunker and help Cash Money/Young Money hold it down while its fearless leader Lil Wayne does a jail bid for felony weapons possession. Drake denies that he’s overwhelmed by the added responsibilities Weezy’s absence will bring and the all the hoopla surrounding his meteoric fame.
“I mean, I’m not nervous. People expect me to drop the ball. A lot of people think I’m going to drop the ball. And when I’m in the studio, I know what I’m doing. I strive for something different. And when I don’t drop the ball, people say this is great,” he says. “But I want people to be like ‘not only did he not drop the ball, this was incredible.’ … In hip-hop the quality of music, there [are] so few people that put out quality music and so the expectations are like [gestures to indicate low]. So when you surpass those you really get the relationship with your fans. I’m going to use it to strengthen my relationship with my fans and let them know ‘hey, I’m still here, passionate about this, still rapping about real-life things.’ I hope they enjoy it. I really do.”
The music industry has rarely been set ablaze by an unsigned artist. Drake’s “The Best I Ever Had” and accompanying racy video only fanned the flames of his popularity. So he knows that he has to bring the noise and lower the boom on his first major label-backed album. There is no greater creative outlet to do that through than through Cash Money, Drake easily surmised.
“Well, a lot of that has to do with my loyalty to Wayne. Wayne put his neck out there for me very early in the game. He’s done a lot for me. And I know that all Wayne wants is for me to be under his wing … he wants to be proud, like ‘I put Drake’s first album out’ and did this and ‘he’s my artist,’ ” Drake reasons. “And that makes him feel like the man should feel, that he has something other than just himself. I can’t imagine what that feels like. I can’t imagine being like, ‘Man, I want to sign that girl’ and then she goes platinum or she gets signed and that would make me feel really proud. I just wanted to make sure that he gets that feeling.”
Drake’s dizzying ascent in the music world has naturally incited some haters. And the laid-back but intense Drake pretty much flipped on his anonymous critics. “The funniest part is, whoever [is voicing opinions], if they believe that, then they need to go on record. But you can’t [say],‘this person is this and going to do that’ but you won’t go on record. That individual’s scared. They don’t want to be wrong. I mean, opinions are only great opinions when they are like consistent. Like, no matter if that person succeeds or fails, and you had an opinion on them, you stand by it. But if you have just a temporary opinion that you’re scared to give because you think that person might prove you wrong, that’s not a real opinion,” he says.
People strongly opined about his set of mixtapes that torpedoed onto the scene in the last few years. Starting out slowly, the mixtapes began to grow long tentacles that reached the masses nationwide and got the attention of Lil Wayne himself. “It kind of happened like organically, you know?” he says. “It really wasn’t like [it] happened in one day. It was over time. At first it came out, people said, ‘Oh, there’s too much singing, it’s different, it’s weird’ and then like three weeks later, it started to pick up and then three weeks later it started to get big and then after that, it started getting bigger than I ever imagined. … I know that right away people are going to say, ‘Nope, it’s not as good as So Far Gone.’ But then … the music will soak in, and hopefully, they’ll start to love it.”
That’s what Lil Weezy is banking on. Reportedly he dropped some thick stacks on Drizzy Drake to bring his repertoire of hits and skills into the Cash Money fold. And Drake’ll need them while his benefactor completes his stay at a concrete hotel in New York.
“Well, obviously, it’s all unfortunate. [Wayne] keeps me going. His work ethic keeps me going. He’s got a lot of people around him who work very hard. He’s got a crazy movement. … I’ma do everything I can. I’m going to visit him as much as I can in New York. [I’ll] talk to him as he’s willing to talk. I don’t know how much he’s going to be willing to talk. But I’m going to hold him down because that’s my friend.”
–terry shropshire.
