Famous Ontarians – Drake
Every life has a purpose. Every life has a story. AllOntario.ca shares the noteworthy, surprising and fascinating stories about Famous Ontarians, people who were either born or lived in Ontario, Canada, or have spent a large part of their career in the province, or have made a significant contribution to the glory of Ontario.
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Here are the highlights of Drake’s biography.
Drake – Quick Facts
Full Name: Aubrey Drake Graham
Famous as: Rapper, singer, songwriter, executive producer, actor, and entrepreneur
Date of Birth: October 24, 1986
Place of Birth: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Place of Residence: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Background: His father is African American and his mother is an Ashkenazi Jewish Canadian
Star Sign: Scorpio
Spouse: Not married
Children: Son Adonis (born on October 11, 2017 to French artist Sophie Brussaux)
More about Drake on Wikipedia
Website: https://www.drakeofficial.com/
Social Media
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/champagnepapi/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Drake
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drake
- YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCByOQJjav0CUDwxCk-jVNRQ
The most popular Drake’s videos:
“Hotline Bling” – over 1.6B views
“God’s Plan” – about 1.2B
“Started From the Bottom (Explicit)” – over 450M
“Nice For What” – over 350M
Studio albums
- Thank Me Later (2010)
- Take Care (2011)
- Nothing Was the Same (2013)
- Views (2016)
- Scorpion (2018)
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Drake – Biography Highlights
Before Fame
Drake comes from a unique ethnic and religious background: his father is an African American Catholic and his mother is a white Canadian Jew. His father was a drummer for the legendary rock ‘n’ roll star Jerry Lee Lewis and his son has inherited his father’s music genes. When Drake was five years old his parents divorced. His father went to Memphis, where he was incarcerated for a number of years on drug-related charges, while Drake and his mother remained in Toronto.
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Drake grew up in two Toronto neighbourhoods: on Weston Road until grade six and then in Forest Hill. He attended a Jewish school and celebrated a Bar Mitzvah when he was 13. During his school years, Drake was often bullied for his racial and religious background. Despite his Jewish upbringing, Drake says he felt isolated at his virtually all-white high school. He has said that “nobody understood what it was like to be black and Jewish,” but added that “being different from everyone else just made me a lot stronger.”
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Rise to fame
Drake first gained fame on the TV series “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” for his role as a basketball star Jimmy Brooks who became disabled after he was shot by a classmate. Drake appeared in a total of 100 episodes between 2001 and 2008. With the money he made from acting, he supported his mother Sandi Graham and it was the only income had coming.
After leaving the show Drake became one of the biggest rappers in the world. When his album “Thank Me Later” went platinum in 2010, Drake has become a rap phenomenon. His second album “Take Care” won the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and was certified quadruple platinum; it also popularized the phrase “YOLO” from his song “The Motto,” an acronym for “You Only Live Once.”
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
“Nothing Was the Same” was the third Drake’s studio album that was released on September 24, 2013, through OVO Sound. On February 13, 2015, a commercial mixtape “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” was released. On July 31, 2015, Drake released four singles: “Back to Back”, “Charged Up”, “Hotline Bling”, and “Right Hand”. “What a Time to Be Alive” debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, making Drake the first hip hop artist to have two projects reach number one in the same year. 2018–2019 – “Scorpion” and return to television.
Entrepreneur
OVO Sound
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
It is a Toronto-based Canadian record label, founded by hip hop artist Drake, Oliver El-Khatib, and long-time producer Noah “40” Shebib, that began operation in 2012.
Toronto Raptors
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
On September 30, 2013, at a press conference with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Tim Leiweke, Drake was announced as the new “global ambassador” for the Toronto Raptors, thereby joining the executive committee of the NBA franchise
Apple Music
Following the launch of Apple Music, a music and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc., the company announced Drake as the figurehead for the platform at their Worldwide Developers Conference in 2015, with the artist also penning an exclusivity deal with the service worth a reported $19 million
Virginia Black Whiskey
A super-premium brand of American Bourbon whiskey, Virginia Black was introduced in 2016 as collaboration between Drake and Brent Hocking.
Personal Life
Love Life
Drake had an on-off relationship with Rihanna from 2009 to 2016. In 2016 and 2017, he dated pop star Jennifer Lopez. He has also dated tennis icon Serena Williams. More about Drake’s dating history on Capitalxtra.com.
Fatherhood
Drake is a father to one son named Adonis, who was born on October 11, 2017, to French artist Sophie Brussaux. Drake confirmed his fatherhood on the album Scorpion in 2018.
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Drake’s Properties
Drake lives in Toronto, Ontario, in a 35,000-square-foot, $100 million estate nicknamed “The Embassy”, which was built from the ground-up in 2017, and can be seen in the video to his song “Toosie Slide”. He also has a home in Hidden Hills, California which he has owned since 2012. Additionally, he owns a Toronto condo adjacent to the CN Tower and a Boeing 767 airplane.
Drake’s Toronto Residence
Architectural Digest:
Architectural Digest (of April 8, 2020) about Drake’s manor house in hometown Toronto:
“The Toronto home of mega recording artist Aubrey Drake Graham is something else altogether. Measuring 50,000 square feet, with amenities such as an NBA regulation-size indoor basketball court crowned by a 21-square-foot pyramidal skylight, Drake’s astonishing domicile certainly qualifies as extravagant.”
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
BlogTO.com
“We don’t all have Bridle Path mansions with private basketball courts to roam in these trying times, but we can now at least see what that might look like thanks to Drake’s latest video.”
“Toosie Slide” video was shot in self-quarantine, went public on April 2, 2020, and during 2 months generated about 160M views.
BlogTO.com
“Drake is showing off the gigantic pool at his new Toronto mansion this weekend in another display of excess during the pandemic. While most of us couldn’t hit the lake this weekend due to restrictions, Drake doesn’t have to worry about that seeing as this pool appears to rival the Great Lakes in size.”
“Air Drake”
According to TMZ.com, Drake got his massive $185 million private jet for free from Cargojet Airline “because the Canada-based airline that made it, Cargojet, believes it’ll more than pay for itself in publicity as a high-profile traveling billboard with one of the biggest rappers in the world.”
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram
Source: Champagnepapi via Instagram