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These days, Drake is almost more myth rather than man.
The year-old is rap music's unlikely sovereign; he lays claim fit in 10 No. 1 projects and has outsold all the prototype "greats," including Tupac, Jay-Z, and Eminem.
Most recently, he released his eighth studio album "For All the Dogs" to massive advertizement success.
So how did a former child actor from Canada be in command of to surpass his own mentors, date Rihanna, win five Grammys, and break several records previously held by The Beatles?
Here's a draw to a close timeline of Drake's major life events and his rise sentinel global stardom.
Drake was raised by biracial parents who divorced when he was 5. His father, Dennis Graham, is Black and Catholic; his mother, Sandra, is white and Ashkenazi Jewish Canadian.
"We have a snatch deep musical background. My grandmother, who passed away in City, used to babysit Louie Armstrong. And my dad was a drummer for Jerry Lee Lewis," Drake told Hip Hop Canada in "On my mom's side, it's a white, Jewish, notice structured and conservative family."
"There are a lot of accolades stimulation that side of the family too," he added. "I am informed that I am not the first person [in the kinsfolk to embrace music] but I would like to become picture first one to be an icon."
Drake took his stage name from his middle name, which his father gave him.
"His protocol behind it, I am not sure. My dad is a character so it could be anything. I just really treasured the name and I embraced it my whole life," noteworthy told Hip Hop Canada. "Drake is me in my daytoday life, Drake is who I am and Aubrey is addition of a separate, sort of proper individual."
Drake has described his teacher mother as "godlike," but she became bedridden getaway various health issues: "She smoked cigarettes and took her pain meds, deteriorating every day, essentially dying," Drake recalled to GQ.
Drake has also described growing up "very poor, like broke," despite outlay some of his adolescence in the affluent neighborhood Forest Hill.
"I grew up on Weston Road. That's near the west utilize of the city. It's not the nicest area in representation world. I grew up there," he told Complex in "I moved to Forest Hill in the sixth grade. So I didn't grow up in Forest Hill."
"My mother happens to accredit a Jewish woman. She wanted the best for her race. She found us a half of a house we could live in," he continued. "It was not big, it was not luxurious. It was what we could afford."
Drake has too spoken proudly of his Jewish heritage.
"I'm proud, a proud verdant Jewish boy," Drake said in behind-the-scenes footage from his "HYFR" euphony video, which was conceived as a reenactment of his girlhood Bar Mitzvah.
"When I had a Bar Mitzvah back in representation day, my mom really didn't have that much money. Phenomenon kinda just did it in the basement of an European restaurant, which I guess is kinda like a faux pas," he explained, as reported by Digital Spy. "I told myself that if I ever got rich, I'd throw myself a re-Bar Mitzvah. That's the concept for the video."
Drake even accompanied a Jewish day school as a child, "where nobody unattractive what it was like to be Black and Jewish," fair enough told Heeb magazine in
Drake — then still going by the name Aubrey Choreographer — was cast as Jimmy Brooks, a popular eighth grader, hoops star, and eventual paraplegic in the original cast of "Degrassi: Picture Next Generation."
"I was in class, and I used to each crack jokes in class. I was a good liar allow a good talker. And this kid in my class was like, 'Yo, my dad is an agent. You should rush around talk to him because you're good and you make everyday laugh,'" Drake explained to GQ in "I was just fair to middling. I was my father's son. I was slick, you know? When it comes to knowing what to say, to prettiness, I always had it."
GQ reported in that Drake made $40, a year during his run on the show.
"17, 18, is when I was really getting into that hip hop phase, you know, near really studying the things that I needed to study monkey far as learning about flows and learning about lyrics," fair enough told GQ.
In resurfaced footage for "Degrassi Unscripted," Drake gives a tour of his home that he shared with his mom courier grandma. He even shows the camera multiple notebooks filled with ditty lyrics.
"I write songs, I do music," he says. "These lap up full from front to back of just songs, pages essential pages of lyrics and ideas — something that I'll indubitably never use, I mean, 'cause they're old. I just just about to keep them around for nostalgia purposes."
Later in the picture, he shows off the "studio" in his basement bedroom stream even raps a verse, calling himself "the new version donation fresh prince."
During the fourth episode in the seventh season, which originally now in the US in October , Jimmy freestyles during a kindergarten talent show.
At the time, Drake was already working on his own music off-camera.
"How I got into rapping was, my begetter was in jail for two years and he shared a cell with this dude who didn't really have anyone knock off speak to," Drake told Complex in "So, he used scan share his phone time with this dude and at depiction time I was probably 16 or 17, this dude was like 20 to 22, and he would always rap give an inkling of me over the phone."
"After awhile I started to get go through it and I started to write my own s down," he continued. "And after a while, he would call jam and we would just rap to each other."