Toronto rapper Drake is one of the most decorated artists in hip-hop. With four Grammy awards, 13 BET awards and a whopping 34 Billboard awards, the Young Money artist has broken all kinds of musical records. In fact, for the 2010s, Drake was awarded the accolade’ Billboard Artist of the Decade’, beating pop-music powerhouses such as Rihanna and Adele.
During the 2010s, Drake was unstoppable. With four Grammy awards, 13 BET awards and a whopping 34 Billboard awards, the Young Money artist broke all kinds of musical records and was even awarded the accolade ‘Billboard Artist of the Decade’.
However, as he has evolved as an artist and musician, the Canadian native (real name Aubrey Graham) has grown to dislike some of his material, especially a lot of his early releases. In an interview with the LA Times, Drake once admitted that he wasn’t happy with his debut album, Thank Me Later and didn’t feel like he had reached his potential.
Speaking with journalist Gerrick D. Kennedy, Graham stated, “To be 100% honest…I wasn’t necessarily happy with Thank Me Later. People loved it [but] I just knew what I was capable of with a little more time.”
He continued, “I’m very confident in Take Care. I definitely made the exact album that I wanted. Will it appear that way to the world? I’m not sure because it’s definitely different. It’s not 15 ‘I’m On Ones.'”
During the 2011 interview, Graham showed his partial liking for the body of work, stating, “This album has consistency. You will not hear a piece of music that does not belong. The words were really important to me. When you get a young artist, and they are on the rise, often the music becomes not what they have going on in their lives or surrounding things, but it starts to lose substance.”
Drake’s 2010 debut album Thank Me Later topped the Billboard 200 and received platinum status immediately upon its release. It was critically acclaimed but is far from Drake’s most successful body of work.