Do you remember your first time?
I do.
It must have been about 2007 when the lust for Trey Songz was mounting colossal heights and my Internet connectivity wasn’t what it is today. After looming the webs I came across a new Trey Songz song “Replacement Girl,” I squinted, trying to get a better look at still-braided-Trey against that grainy map in the background and then it happened…
“Wait…Is that Jimmy from Degrassi?”
It was the first time I ever realized that the little wheelchair ridden boy from the Canadian sitcom I watched re-runs of religiously, was the face of the rapper alongside Trey. “But Drake?” I asked myself, “who is Drake? Jimmy’s real name is Aubrey.”
It would be another two years until I realized that this Drake had some real talent while bumping his “So Far Gone” mix tape in my college dorm, but of course, I could never forget my first time. I could never forget that Drake was Aubrey and Aubrey was Jimmy…and for that reason I couldn’t quite take him so seriously…at first, and that seems to be the same fate Drake is facing with his public persona.
If we look at Drake’s career from an aerial standpoint, the Canadian-born and bred star has defied just about every odd and is currently dominating the hip-hop game. In an industry where machismo and thug-living is rewarded, a good little half Jewish boy who was close to his Momma, worshipped his Granny, and had an uncle who let him whip his drop-top Lexus is winning, and hip-hop simply can’t accept it.
Drake didn’t have the gun slanging, coke dealing upbringing rappers like to rap about, so he did what he was expected to do; he kept it real. He sang about what he knew as Aubrey and capitalized on what most young adults are experiencing when they don’t have the stresses of rising from harsh living conditions: Women.
And once he became Drake, he rapped about what he learned being Drake: A new grade of women.
From jokes on his eyebrows, to witticism that called him soft, sensitive, and editorials that made us all chuckle at his liking for white wine spritzers, Drake never got a break.
He could drop hot song, after hot song and get features from the likes of Andre 3000 and post-mortem Aaliyah, but still the jokes would be on his Versace sweaters, or his (admittedly hilarious) DaDa jersey collection.
Meanwhile, rappers with half the talent and a quarter of the record sales are wearing dangling earrings, putting out generic trash music, and are being spared the level of criticism Drake is subjected to simply because he was once Aubrey.
I’ll be the one to say it, Drake may be a little different than we are used to in the rap game, but I don’t think he is corny; I think he is unique. Corny is conforming to the mold set out for you. Corny would have been Drake on the scene hiding his past and rapping about gun toting and slanging rocks. That would have been corny.
Corny isn’t being one of the only rappers to saturate markets with both female and male demographics, that’s smart.
Bashing on Drake reinstates the idea that good guys don’t win, the thugs, and click-clack bangers win. It re-instates the idea that the dude who does his homework respects his momma and keeps it humble isn’t the one who gets the fame, and if he does, he’ll be constantly made to think he doesn’t deserve it.
The fact is this: Drake indeed started from the bottom, and although his bottom may have been in-ground pools and drop top Lexuses on loan, he came from the bottom of the hip-hop totem pole, defied the odds as a foreigner, a singer, a “corny dude” and above all, someone who made their rise to the top from being a child star on television.
Dada jersey or not, that’s something we kind of have to respect regardless of the effects of our first time.
Rachel is the Style Editor for GlobalGrind.com, proud graduate of a SUNY school, and as sarcastic as they come. Follow her on Twitter for random daily ramblings @MiissHislop and on Instagram for as many puppy photos and selfies as you can handle @AmazingRach
