Drake

Born into a musical family in Toronto on October 24, 1986, Canadian singer, rapper and actor Drake (Aubrey Drake Graham), nephew of bassist Larry Graham, attracted the attention of producers with a series of mixtapes released in 2006. His first single, "Best I Ever Had", reached No.3 in the US charts, and his debut album, Thank Me Later(2010), led to a label battle that was won by Lil Wayne's Young Money. The album topped the US sales charts. The following year, Take Care renewed the genre between rap pop and R&B, and achieved the same chart results (No. 1). His third album, Nothing Was the Same (2013), is closer to Wu-Tang Clan than R. Kelly, and in turn reaches No. 1. Two mixtapes follow in 2015, If You're Reading This It's too Late and What a Time to Be Alive, co-credited to Future. This double enabled Drake to equal a record held by Jay-Z since 2004: both new releases reached number one, and the seventeen tracks on the first entered the rap bestseller chart. The fourth album, Views (No.1 in 2016), builds on this success with the global hit "Hotline Bling " (No.3), whose video is heavily promoted, followed by the world number one "One Dance". The following year saw the release of "Fake Love", the prelude to the "playlist" More Life, a mixtape featuring some thirty producers and performers, which again reached No. 1. His fifth album, the double Scorpion (2018), is another large-scale success, with five No. 1 singles, including a virtual duet with Michael Jackson, "Don't Matter to Me", at No. 4. The Canadian releases a new EP in 2019, entitled The Best in the World Pack, before following it up with the Certified Lover Boy album in 2021, which welcomes contributions from Lil Baby, Jay-Z and Future and unsurprisingly tops the Billboard 200. With the following album, Honestly, Nevermind (2022), featuring a duet with 21 Savage, Drake reached number one on both sides of the Atlantic. The same year, the collaborative album Her Loss with 21 Savage, featuring Travis Scott, reached No. 1 in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., as did its surprise follow-up, For All the Dogs (2023), driven by the No. 2 "Slime You Out" with SZA. After the release of the 100 Gigs EP (2024), featuring collaborations with 21 Savage and Young Thug, Drake embarked on a second collaborative album, this time with PartyNextDoor for $ome $exy $ongs 4 U (2025), his tenth No.1 charted full-length in the U.S. and Canada in fifteen years.