📖 Biography

Early Life

Aubrey Drake Graham was born on October 24, 1986, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His dad, Dennis Graham, is an American drummer from Memphis who played alongside Jerry Lee Lewis; his mum, Sandra "Sandi" Graham, is a Canadian English teacher and florist. His parents split when he was five, and he grew up mostly with his mum in Toronto, splitting summers between Toronto and Memphis.

He attended Forest Hill Collegiate Institute and later Vaughan Road Academy, but dropped out to chase an acting career — he only picked up his high school diploma years later, in 2012.

Wheelchair Jimmy

At just 14, Drake landed the role of basketball player Jimmy Brooks on the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. His character was shot by a classmate and left permanently using a wheelchair — a storyline that made Jimmy one of the show's most memorable characters. Drake played the role for seven years, from 2001 to 2009, and even picked up a Young Artist Award in 2002 for Best Ensemble in a TV Series.

The show made him a household name in Canada while he stayed almost totally unknown in the US — a gap that wouldn't last much longer.

From Mixtapes to Main Stage

While still filming Degrassi, Drake started releasing music on the side. His first mixtape, Room for Improvement (2006), sold modestly — around 6,000 copies — but it was a start. He followed it with Comeback Season (2007) on his own October's Very Own imprint, which produced his first real hit, "Replacement Girl." Then came So Far Gone (2009), the mixtape that changed everything and led to him signing with Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment.

In 2009, Degrassi's producers found out he'd been recording music without their sign-off and gave him a choice: the show, or the music. He chose music. Turned out to be a pretty good call.

OVO Sound

In 2012, Drake co-founded the record label OVO Sound with producer Noah "40" Shebib and manager Oliver El-Khatib. What began as a small crew around Drake grew into a full label and brand, home to artists like PartyNextDoor, Majid Jordan, dvsn, Roy Woods and Smiley — and a big part of why Toronto is now taken seriously as a global hub for hip-hop and R&B.

Legacy

Three multi-platinum albums in a row — Thank Me Later (2010), Take Care (2011) and Nothing Was the Same (2013) — cemented Drake as one of the defining rap artists of his generation, known for blending rapping with melodic, R&B-influenced singing. He's often credited with popularising that rap-sung hybrid sound across the genre. See the discography and awards pages for how the story kept going.