Drake has become one of the most influential rappers in the world. Alongside MCs like Kanye and Nicki Minaj, whenever the Toronto native releases a record, it reaches multi-platinum status due to his reach and power as an artist.
Drake has been in the spotlight since he signed with Young Money in 2007 and exploded after he featured on the YMCMB 2009 hit ‘Bed Rock’ alongside Tyga, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne and others.
Before Drake (Aubrey Graham) became a Grammy Award-Winning rapper and global superstar, he was a teen actor. Prior to the ‘God’s Plan’ act even considereding a music career, he first and foremost thought of himself as an actor. At the tender age of 14, the musician was cast for the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation.
However, following his stint on the television show, Graham decided to focus on music full-time. He released his mixtape Room for Improvement in 2006, then quickly followed up with Comeback Season in 2007 and So Far Gone in 2009.
During this period, Drake performed shows for minor fees. As reported by The Flyer Vault earlier this year, Graham received a small $100 payment for his performance as the opening act for an Ice Cube show at a Toronto venue called Kool Haus. Furthermore, he was only granted a meagre half-hour set before Ice Cube took the stage.
However, within three years, the former actor was headlining festivals such as Lollapalooza and others. With four Grammy awards, 13 BET awards and a whopping 34 Billboard awards, the Young Money artist has now broken all kinds of musical records.
In 2007 Drake appeared on the legendary Toronto DVD Series Ambush TV, in an interview on the Versatile Vigilante podcast, the DVD’s founder Drew G explained, “He was doing DeGrassi at the time, and I reached out to him. I got his number, and it was something..in the streets, he was the one! He was making a lot of noise…forget about the DeGrassi thing ’cause for me, it wasn’t even about that and for others as well, it was about the rapping!”
You can see extremely rare footage of Drake rapping on Ambush TV in the video below.
