JUST GETTING STARTED
Grammy wins would be huge boost for Drake’s music career
Just when it seemed like Drake couldn’t get any bigger than Hotline Bling, the Toronto-raised rapper showed us in 2016 he was only getting started.
Whether he was shaking up the streaming music industry with his album Views or serving as unofficial ambassador to Canada, there was hardly a moment when he wasn’t in the spotlight.
With a new year ahead of him, Aubrey Drake Graham is showing he’s still rewriting the book on success in the music industry.
At least one new project — More Life — is expected in the coming months, while a slew of rumoured collaborations with big names like Jennifer Lopez and Kanye West have fans waiting impatiently.
Drake is also up for eight Grammys at February’s ceremony.
“Some people were maybe thinking his 15 minutes would start to expire in 2016, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” says Dalton Higgins, author of Far from Over: The Music and Life of Drake (ECW Press).
“It was near impossible to ignore him.”
Starting with his appearance on Rihanna’s single Work in January, Drake began an astutely calculated year in which he gave fans just enough to keep them wanting more.
The release of single Summer Sixteen followed a few weeks later and in April, he dropped Views, his highly anticipated album, which blew away its competition on the charts.
Prominently displaying Toronto’s CN Tower on its cover, Views spent 13 non-consecutive weeks in the top spot of Billboard’s album chart.
It also helped establish a trend that’s seen some albums get longer to bolster chart success.
Today ’s music charts are strongly influenced by how many times each song on an album is streamed.
Weighted by its 20-track count, songs from Views were cumulatively played more times than other albums with fewer tracks. In total, its songs were streamed more than three billion times on Spotify and well over a billion more on Apple Music.
Following the release of Views, the Weeknd’s Starboy was packed with 18 tracks while Frank Ocean squeezed 17 onto Blonde, also helping them top the charts.
Drake also brought his celebrity power to basketball where he continued a role as a second mascot, of sorts, for the Toronto Raptors.
His seasonal Drake Night only grew in popularity with his chart status.
4Korners, the official Raptors DJ, says Drake’s popularity expands the appeal of the game.
“When I play clubs in Europe and Asia, people show up either wearing Raptors gear or wearing OVO Drake gear,” says 4Korners, born Kirk St. Cyr.
“He’s on a level that I don’t think most people even (thought) could be attained by a Canadian hip-hop artist.”
Not everything has been smooth sailing for Drake this year, however. Despite a lineup of critically lauded R& B artists on his record label, Drake’s OVO Sound has struggled to make a hit without his name attached to it.
Past collaborators like Majid Jordan and Partynextdoor turned out albums this year, but didn’t see much chart action.
But as Drake’s career has proven, sometimes persistence can reap big rewards.
“Drake’s momentum is going to stay,” predicts Higgins. “But I think it’s going to shift focus.”
He says the performer has a team of “astute business people” who helped him secure ventures, like his recent branded jacket with Canada Goose and an expansion of his OVO retail store locations.
Winning a few Grammys could bolster Drake’s reputation in the industry, too. So far, he only has one of the prized statues — he won best rap album for 2011’s Take Care — and grabbing more would be a huge moment in his career.
Higgins says Grammys are just as important for Drake’s Canadian production team as they are for the rapper himself.
“They’re all nominated now,” he says. “That’s going to be a big boost to their careers.”
With Drake’s latest project on the horizon, the question is how he will move into career maturity.
More Life is expected to angle toward being a playlist rather than a traditional album, which would aim directly at pleasing listeners on streaming services.
That could mean Drake treats it more like a compilation in which he appears on some tracks himself but leaves space to showcase fellow artists on his label and acts as a mentor for the next generation. The Canadian Press