I bumped into the rapper Drake over the weekend while out & about in Atlanta. The fact that he was surrounded by a massive entourage of hard legs with thick necks didn’t conceal his gay tendencies not one bit.
Naturally, me being as out of the loop as I am, I had NO clue who this Drake was. So I turned to someone on the fringes of the chaotic scene, who chided me for not knowing this dude was up next. “Miss Rose,” he said. “Drake’s the next R.Kelly. He’s Lil Wayne’s protege… he’s…” — All I needed to hear were the words “Lil Wayne’s protege” and he was dismissed.
It figures that Drake is just another skeleton in the Hip Hop boneyard who achieved fame by following the same lame formula: get co-signed by the biggest name in the business and you’re on top just like that with 15 minutes to spare.
A little background on 22-year-old Drake: he’s a biracial, Jewish Canadian who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth in a wealthy enclave of Canada. Not exactly the hardscrabble life that Hip Hop heads typically glorify. But of course his privileged past will be conveniently swept under the rug in light of his affiliation with Lil Wayne and other pillars of the Hip Hop community.
Drake got his start in show biz as an actor on the popular Canadian TV series Degrassi, where he played a disabled teen. Since 2006 he’s been putting in work on mixtapes — the last of which, So Far Gone — made a little noise before being crowned “Mixtape of the Year.” Drake is currently in the studio working on a full length album with Wayne, struggling R&B singer Trey Songz and old man Jay Z.
Drake’s Internet presence is strong, but that presence apparently doesn’t follow him offline. They say Drake’s Atlanta concert sold out in 8 hours on Saturday. But only 500 tickets were sold, and only 200 bodies attended his Atlanta after party. Those figures aren’t exactly major considering that the Velvet Room nightclub packs in 5 times that many on an average night.
