Canadian Hip Hop at it’s Best: Drake
December 12th, 2010
Rarely do i go out and do this, but I felt like sparking some discussion. Given his latest, and albeit, impressive mixtape drop So Far Gone, Drake has already established himself under the wing of hip hop’s biggest star, Weezy, and has received the co-sign from many legends and current hip-hop studs. For a bloke who started on Degrassi, the look and the appeal was there. He threw in a rap voice and some great lyrical talent to pretty much complete his threat. Is it correct that he has got the potential to be, not just the largest selling Canadian Hip Hop Artist, but simply, the most known Canadian hip-hop artist ever?
The truth is this ; I have heard more about Drake from the States than I have from Canada’s own. To claim that any other artist north of the boarder has received as much buzz and expectation for a debut album might be unsound compared with Drake. If you glance at the most successful Canadian artist, you will find some great emcees : Maestro Fresh Wes ( The Godfather of Canadian hiphop ), Saukrates ( Multi-dimensional musical genius ), Kardinal Offishall ( envoy of Canadian hip-hop ), K-os ( simply one of Canada’s premier emcees ). With all of this talent, it might be hard to figure out how or what Drake has that should shoot him to the top.
The answer’s simple. Lil’Wayne. Drake hasn’t only hip hop’s biggest star at his disposal, but music’s biggest star. Whether he makes a decision to ride the coat-tails of Weezy’s success is up to Drake, but it seems like he already has enough of a vibe going with him under Interscope without even putting out an album. With over 80,000 mixtape downloads of So Far Gone ( with a variety of download links the number could be higher ), i find it terribly difficult to say that any of the aforementioned Canadian artists, let alone an artist of any area code, could pull that off. I still remember when he put out two joints alongside younger brother ; he was hardly a final thought notwithstanding his huge amount of potential and talent. Now, the difficulty is not talking about him and fitting him into that Weezy method of always being a subject of conversation.
Sure, while those formerly discussed artists have had amazing success across the boarder, some fizzed out too soon ( Maestro ) and some took a bit to get there ( Kardinal ). Drake appears to have been as loud as ever without ever making any noise. I do not really want to come across like I am riding this fellow ( or take anything away from those Canadian hop hop legends ), I’m sure the ego is probably boosting on the daily, but i do feel like notwithstanding the quality of his music he is going to be on top or at least around the top for some time for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with music.
Canada is piled high with talent, and if you have spotted, KevinNottingham.com has been hard at work promoting some hiphop from America Junior, as Homer Simpson calls it. Unfortunately , I can say that Drake potentially won’t have that Canadian Artist- Drake label attached to him for too long, similar to how K’naan has been developing in Europe and East Asia and even in parts of the US. The small bit of it all is that if and when Drake does release an album, we will be able to possibly expect BET’s numerous countdown lists to feature him, for all the girlies to go nuts, and for all of the dominant male hiphop heads to give him his daps. He has a ton of appeal and will definitely develop among even the tiniest hiphop fans, just like his apparent partner in crime, Weezy, has.
Categories: Music and Gadget
