Drake

Aubrey Drake Graham was born on October 24, 1986. He is a Canadian actor, rapper and singer. Drake was born in Toronto, Ontario, he is the son of Dennis Graham, who was a drummer. His father is African American and his mother is a white Jewish Canadian.His parents divorced when he was five, and he was then raised by his mother in Toronto's wealthy Forest Hill neighborhood, attending elementary at Forest Hill Public School, and high school at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, where he began acting. Drake also spent many summers visiting his dad in Memphis.He never graduated high school. He orignally became "noticed" on the scenes of Degrassi the Next Generation, He was known as Jimmy Brooks on the show. Graham continued to reconignize Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment before offically signing with the label in June 2009. His first studio album "Thank Me Later" is expected to be released on the label June 15, 2010. Drake has already worked with Lil Wayne, Bird Man and Kanye West. He also has worked with Eminem and Jay-Z. With his successful mixtape "So Far Gone" he has earned many and been nominated for several awards, including the Grammys. He performed at the 2010 Grammys. Graham also won two Juno Awardsnin 2010 which was for Best New Artist and Rap Recording of the Year. In Feburary 206 Graham released his first mixtape "Room for Improvement. It was made available via his website and offical myspace page. In 2007 he released another mixtape, "Comeback Season" and made a music video for "Replacement Girl" featuring Trey Songz. Also in 2007 Graham became the first unsigned Canadian Rapper to have his video featured on BET when his first single,"Replacement Girl" was shown as "New Joint of the Day" on April 30,2007. It was also contained a freestyle over a song with Lil Wayne originally by Brisco and Flo-Rida. On February 13, 2009, Graham released his third official mixtape, So Far Gone for free download on his blog site which included Graham's mentor Lil Wayne, Bun B, Omarion , Lloyd and his friend, Trey Songz it received over 2,000 downloads in the first 2 hours of release. It was extremely successful in the underground and eventually made its way to radio. Due to the success of the mixtape's two singles, " Best I Ever Had " and " Successful" it was released as an EP featuring only five songs from the mix tape and one new song. MTV named it, "The Hottest Mixtape of 2009 (So Far). Since So Far Gone, Graham worked with DJ Khaled, Young Money Jay-Z Kanye West Young Jeezy Mary J. Blige Timbaland, Birdman , Trey Songz and Jamie Foxx . Drake has also written for Jazz Cartier, Bishop Brigante, and Dr. Dre . He achieved success before signing to a major record label, according to his management Hip Hop Since 1978 . In June 2009, it was revealed that an unauthorized album entitled The Girls Love Drake and credited to Graham was up for sale on iTunes. A lawsuit was planned against the label. On the Billboard Hot 100 chart of July 4, 2009, both " Best I Ever Had ", and " Every Girl "by Young Money Entertainment entered the top ten at positions 3 and 10 respectively. Graham is only the second artist to have his first two top ten hits in the same week. The first was fellow Canadian Nelly Furtado who entered the top ten in 2001 with " I'm Like A Bird " the same week as Missy Elliott s " Get Ur Freak On ", a remix of which included a credited contribution from Furtado. On June 29, 2009, it was confirmed, that Graham signed a record deal with Young Money Entertainment. This followed what Billboard purported to be "one of the biggest bidding wars ever". Graham toured with Wayne and other rap artists on the America's Most Wanted Tour. On July 31, 2009, Graham, who was performing on an already injured knee, fell on stage while performing "Best I Ever Had", with Lil Wayne in Camden, New Jersey. Graham underwent surgery on September 8, 2009 for a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee. He was currently undergoing rehabilitation and was able to walk. On September 15, 2009, So Far Gone was released as a seven-track EP in which five of the tracks were from the original mixtape. It debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200 making it the highest charting album in the United States by a Canadian rapper. Since then the album sold over 400,000 copies in the United States. On April 18th, 2010, the album won Rap Recording of the Year at the 2010 Juno Awards.