(Under his birth name, Aubrey Graham, he played a basketball star on “Degrassi: The Next Generation.”) As with his predecessor Kanye West, there was something novel about a male rapper who appeared to be so sensitive.
But what distinguished Drake was a sense of shameless guile, a confidence in his complex persona that was due partly to his background as an actor. There had been artists before him, like Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott, who toggled between rapping and singing. The Pacers better watch their backs.On “Views,” the rapper bleeds onto the page and then admires the pattern. Carter’s time with the Raptors ended in 2004, but Drake and his home team have been carrying his legacy forward: The song “Summer Sixteen,” not included on Views, has been pseudo-officially adopted by the Toronto Raptors as they “ look for revenge” in the NBA playoffs for the second year in a row. “Been flowin’ stupid since Vince Carter was on some through the legs arm in the hoop shit”ĭrake was only 14 when Vince Carter - the Greatest Toronto Raptor of All Time - made his legendarily insane dunk in the 2000 NBA All-Star Dunk Contest.
Just around the corner from the housing complex is the equally notorious Galloway Road - known to locals as G-Way - which RapGenius suggests is home to some members of P. The notorious community housing development at 4301 Kingston Road in Scarborough gets a nod in Drake’s Pop Style. “This sound like some forty-three-oh-one shit” The now-defunct Fluid, which Drizzy references in Weston Road Flows, has occasionally been referred to as a “YYZ legacy”. “Big Apple had the white Hummer parked right in front of Fluid”ĭrake, like so many Toronto kids that came of age in the early 2000s, was no stranger to Fluid Lounge, a long-running, “urban music”-heavy, and occasionally ratchet club on the bar-lined Richmond Street West in the city’s entertainment district. If you Google “Jane + Weston,” the first entry that pops up is the question “Which areas should I avoid in Toronto?” (The entirety of Weston Road Flows is about Drake’s experiences in this neighborhood.) 3. The 6 God’s rags-to-riches narrative is central to his appeal, and he takes every chance he can get to emphasize just how raggedy his past was on Still Here, he refers to the low-income neighborhood at Jane Street and Weston Road, where he grew up and casual stabbings still occasionally occur. “How did I finesse all this shit from Jane and Weston?” The view of Toronto from London on the Esplanade. This year, Drake’s OVO Fest takes place during Caribana weekend. The extravagant festivities surrounding the parade have become a linchpin of Toronto’s cultural calendar, but it’s also been known to attract violence and create stray bullets. “ Caribana and trying not to catch a stray.ĭrake makes a (slightly unintelligible) reference to Caribana, the raucous parade held in Toronto each year to celebrate its proud Caribbean community, in Views. The rapper hails from Toronto’s Lawrence Heights neighborhood, which has been alternately referred to as the “Jungle” by locals and “ Toronto’s new murder capital” by The Globe and Mail. In Grammys, Drake makes several surprising shout-outs to the teenage Somali-Canadian rapper Hassan Ali, who goes by the name “ Top 5” but has also been nicknamed “Shirt Off Shawty” because, well, he always has his shirt off. It probably helps that his winter attire consistently involves his dope and incredibly expensive OVO x Canada Goose parka.ĭrake's been known to hang at the Kennedy Road restaurant Habibiz in Toronto's notorious Scarborough neighborhood. In Hype, Drizzy makes another reference to the 6 and its notoriously frigid temperatures, which, as a native of the Great White North, never faze him. In 9, Drake boasts about turning the city on its head, making, in the meantime, a savage sexual pun. The nickname “The 6” (also: Six and 6ix) - a reference to Toronto’s area codes, 416 and 647 - had been circulating in the city well before Drake became the 6 God, but he’s largely credited with putting it on the world map. “And I turn the 6 upside down, it’s a 9 now”
Here, a Torontonian ranks and explains them, from least to most obscure. The full-length title, referencing the nickname for his beloved hometown of Toronto, would have been redundant anyway everything about Views, from its musical structure to its cover art to its sly lyrics, is a paean to the Ontario capital. Drake graced the world with his long-awaited Views album on Thursday night, after dropping “ From the 6” from the album’s title.