Rarely do I go out and do this, but I felt like sparking some debate. Given his most recent, 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 numerous legends and current hip hop studs. For a guy who began on Degrassi, the look and the appeal was already there. He threw in a rap voice and some great lyrical skill to pretty much complete his threat. Is it fair to say that he has the potential to be, not only the biggest selling Canadian Hip Hop Artist, but simply, the most known Canadian hip hop artist ever?
The fact is this; I’ve heard more about Drake from the USA than I have from Canada’s own. To say that any other artist north of the boarder has garnered as much buzz and anticipation for a debut album could be inaccurate in comparison to Drake. If you look at the most successful Canadian artist, you’ll find some great emcees: Maestro Fresh Wes (The Godfather of Canadian Hip Hop), Saukrates (Multi-dimensional musical genius), Kardinal Offishall (Ambassador of Canadian Hip Hop), K-os (easily one of Canada’s premier emcees). With all of this talent, it could be hard to figure out how or what Drake has that should shoot him to the top.
The answer is simple. Lil’Wayne. Drake has not only hip hop’s biggest star at his disposal, but music’s biggest star. Whether he decides to ride the coat-tails of Weezy’s success is up to Drake, but it seems like he already has enough of a buzz 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 very hard 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 Little Brother; he was hardly an afterthought despite his large amount of potential and talent. Now, the problem is not talking about him and fitting him into that “Weezy Mode” of always being a topic of conversation.
Sure, while those previously mentioned artists have had tremendous success across the boarder, some fizzed out too soon (Maestro) and some took a while to get there (Kardinal). Drake seems to have been as loud as ever without ever making any noise. I don’t want to come across like I’m riding this guy (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 despite the quality of his music he will be on top or at least around the top for a while for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with music.
Canada is loaded with talent, and if you have noticed, KevinNottingham.com has been hard at work promoting some hip hop from “America Junior,” as Homer Simpson calls it. Sadly, I can say that Drake probably 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 Asia and even in parts of the US. The small of it all is that if and when Drake does release an album, we can probably expect BET’s countless countdown lists to feature him, for all the girlies to go nuts, and for all the alpha male hip hop heads to give him his daps. He’s got a ton of appeal and will certainly develop amongst even the slightest hip hop fans, just like his apparent partner in crime, Weezy, has.
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