How did Lil Wayne discover Drake?
As the story goes, Lil Wayne is credited with discovering young, Canadian rapper Drake back in 2006. The New Orleans rapper and founder of Young Money supposedly sent Drizzy a message on MySpace and got him started on his music career. But that’s not what happened, according to James “Jas” Prince.
Jas is the son of the founder of Rap-a-Lot Records. In 2006, he was a college student eager to make an impact on his family’s business. Armed with a MySpace account and a lot of enthusiasm, Jas set out to find the next hottest artist.
In those days, MySpace was one of the biggest platforms for music discovery. Artists could upload and stream music for free, as well as connect and collaborate with millions of people. It was one of the earliest forms of social media.
In 2006, MySpace had named Drake the most popular unsigned artist in Canada. He was previously an actor, but his style of melodic rap rushed him into the music industry.
Jas remembered stumbling upon Drake’s brown and beige profile (MySpace profiles had customisable designs). “His page just said that his name was Drake and he was from Toronto, and there was a picture of him and he had a video on there for the song ‘Replacement Girl’ with Trey Songz”, Jas told The Fader in an interview.
“You know how MySpace had a little radio player on the right side? He had a couple of songs on there, and I was listening to him like, damn, he’s pretty dope”.
Jas wasted no time sliding into Drake’s DMs. “I let him know who I was and who my father is, and I told him that I wanted to make him famous”, Jas recalled. Unsurprisingly, Drake was initially sceptical, but Jas was adamant that he could help Drake achieve the success he deserved.
When Jas took Drake’s music to his father, he was met with disappointment. “What do you see in this?” his dad asked him, being more used to gangster rap and old school hip hop, not the sing-song rap that Drake used.
Still determined, Jas headed to Lil Wayne. The two were cool at the time, and Jas wanted Wayne to know about his dope discovery. Just like his dad, Wayne’s response was negative. “Jas, don’t ever play this for me again. He sucks!”, Jas said that Wayne told him.
Persistent as ever, Jas sought other moments to convince people of Drake’s talents. While driving Lil Wayne to a jewelry store, he put ‘Replacement Girl’ on and watched as Wayne started to bob his head. Next, he played Drake’s remix of Wayne’s track ‘A Milli’.
“Who’s this?” Wayne asked.
“This n***a Drake that you told me you didn’t like”, Jas replied.
Jas had been strategically sending Drake unreleased instrumentals to rap over, giving Drake a significant advantage over other unsigned artists.
Wayne was convinced, and after a quick phone call with Drake, agreed to fly him out to Houston the next day. Despite Wayne’s eagerness, when he first met Drake in person, he barely spoke to him. “I felt like [Wayne] was so timid because Drake was so dope, he was competition”, Jas said.
With time, Wayne loosened up and the meeting resulted in the rapper inviting both Drake and Jas to join him on his tour bus to Atlanta. When they got there, they headed straight to the studio, where Drake recorded the original versions of ‘Forever’ and ‘Stunt Hard’. The tracks leaked a few weeks later, and Drake’s ascent to stardom was underway.
Lil Wayne is often labelled as the person who brought Drake into the limelight, but according to Jas’ story, it was him who found and fought for Drake to make it big. Jas has filed multiple lawsuits in an attempt to get the money that he believes he is owed by Cash Money Records for Drake’s music – and to secure his legacy as the person who discovered Drake.