Aubrey Drake Graham was born in Toronto, Canada, on October 24, 1986. Drake grew up loving music since his family was big on music from a young age. His father, Dennis Graham, played the role of a drummer for a band called “Jerry Lee Lewis band.” However, his mother, Sandi Graham, a Canadian Jewish educator, was severe regarding religion and made Drake attend a white school where he was known and bullied for being the only black jew. Drake considered himself more a “black man” since he was more engrossed with “black culture,” but he also mentioned that being Jewish was a “cool twist.” His parents divorced when he was just five years old, and his mom took him and raised him while his father moved back to the US, which Drake would occasionally visit. 

  Soon after, in 2001, Drake began his early acting career with the help of his friend’s father, who had offered him a role in “Degrassi: The next generation.” Drake had gotten his first role as Jimmy Brooks, a former basketball player who is put in a wheelchair after an altercation with a classmate. Drake quickly gained popularity in Canada and earned a “Young Artist Award” in 2002 and other honors. 

  While still acting in Degrassi, Drake decided to start his music career by releasing his first debut mixtape in 2006 called “Room for improvement.” The year after, he released his second mixtape, “Comeback Season,” which gained him so much popularity because it included “Replacement girl,” which earned him plenty of recognition. Finally, in 2009 he released his third mixtape, which made it into the top 5 Billboard’s hot 100 singles chart. From this point, Drake had earned plenty of recognition worldwide. In June 2018, Drake released his fifth album named “Scorpion,” which featured Jay-Z, Future, and Michael Jackson. On its first day of release, “Scorpion” broke plenty of records and reportedly sold 170 million streams on Apple Music and 132 million on Spotify. Drake managed to gain 1 billion streams on his album in one week, making him the first artist to achieve 1 billion streams in one week. By the end of the year, “Scorpion” became the most-streamed album of the year. To this day, Drake remains one of the most successful and influential artists globally.