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Semelhante a How Drake Put Toronto on the Hip-Hop Map
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How Drake Put Toronto on the Hip-Hop Map
- 1. Hip-‐Hop in Toronto 2015 AD (After-‐Drake) By: Zaafir Chaudhary Gleaming in all-‐white attire, self-‐proclaimed 6god—the six referring to Toronto area codes 416 and 647— Drake stands in front of a congregation of over 16,000 believers in the Dubai International Stadium. The Toronto Raptor’s global ambassador is there for the Middle Eastern leg of his Would You Like A Tour. Before jumping into his set, the 28-‐year-‐old rapper tells the crowd to cheer for his fellow Toronto disciples DJ Future Da Prince and keyboard player D10. As the night unfolds, Drake sequentially brings the show’s only two performing guests onto the stage—Scarborough’s P. Reign and Hamilton’s OB O’Brien—to share in the exaltation. Drake then croons, “Just hold on, I feel at home.” And why wouldn’t he? He practically brought home with him. The penalty for idol worship in the Sharīʿah law city-‐state likely fails to cross anyone’s mind tonight because they know Dubai wouldn’t dare indulge in the hypocrisy of crucifying someone so similar to itself. Dubai and Drake share more than just the D in their five-‐letter-‐long names; the two manmade marvels are equally intoxicated by the lust of seeing their city expand and reach new heights— Dubai literally and Drake lyrically. Toronto now officially sits on the international hip-‐hop map and trumpets its own unique sound, identity and fleet of recognizable artists. This is the story of how Drake, in a few short years, managed to take Toronto to the world and then bring the world back to Toronto. This is the story of hip-‐hop in Toronto 2015 AD (After Drake). “Hardly Home but Always Reppin” -‐Uptown In 2009, an unsigned Aubrey Graham (Drake’s real name) released a track with Lil Wayne, just months before inking a deal with him, entitled Ransom. Before Drizzy raps his verse he shouts out, “40 I see you. Boi-‐1Da! Toronto I got you, I got us,” indelibly announcing the arrival of Toronto and his team into the mainstream hip-‐ hop world. Since their on-‐record introductions, Toronto-‐born Noah “40” Shebib—Drake’s engineer and producer—and Ajax-‐based Mathew “Boi-‐1Da” Samuels— the beat-‐ maker behind hits such as Headlines, Best I Ever Had and 0 to 100/The Catch Up— have ascended into the highest echelons of hip-‐hop royalty. Boi-‐1da has gone onto work with heavyweights Jay Z, G-‐Unit, Nicki Minaj and a slew of other world-‐renowned artists. In 2010, Eminem borrowed Boi-‐1da for his chart-‐ topping, Grammy-‐winning anthem Not Afraid.
- 2. 40, the architect behind the Drake sound, has since produced Beyoncé, Alicia Keys and Jamie Foxx in addition to winning a host of SOCAN, ASCAP, Grammy and BET awards. 40 popularized the somber, atmospheric sound with his production on So Far Gone—the mixtape that catapulted Drake, and by extension Toronto, into stardom. “I just give everybody a piece of this and make do with what’s left” -‐Free Spirit In 2011, Drake posted a handful of songs from a shadowy Scarborough-‐native calling himself The Weeknd onto his October’s Very Own (OVO) blog. In that same year, Drake scouted the mysterious crooner as a singer and songwriter for his platinum-‐selling sophomore delivery: Take Care. Not only did The Weeknd enjoy official album credits but he also toured with Drake, opening up for him in cities across the globe, including Toronto of course. Today, The Weeknd boasts his own label (XO) as well as being signed to Republic Records, featuring on soundtracks for movies such as The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey, winning four Juno awards, headlining on two world tours and selling hundreds of thousands of albums worldwide. The most recent recipients of slices from the Drake pie are two University of Toronto graduates who form the duo Majid Jordan. Drake collaborated with them for his biggest hit to date, Hold On, We're Going Home. The song debuted at number five on the U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-‐Hop and also peaked at number five on the Canadian Hot 100. The song has sold over two million copies and is officially the highest charting Drake single in Canada ever. In 2012, with fellow Torontonian Oliver El-‐Khatib, Drake founded Toronto-‐based label OVO Sound and signed Majid Jordan and a relatively unknown Mississauga soloist named PartyNextDoor, PND for short. Drake brought PND on tour with him and featured his vocals on his third album, Nothing Was The Same, and ever since then nothing has been the same for PND, whose tour dates have been set for venues across North America and Europe. “Drake has undoubtedly helped to give shape to this new landscape. Toronto has always had good hip-‐hop in terms of producers and studios but Drake cemented a real Toronto hip-‐hop scene,” says producer Jaime Smalbach. “Just like the west coast and the east coast have their respective sounds, now people are starting to talk about the north, the Toronto sound.” “OVO that major shit, Toronto with me that mayor shit” -‐Pop That
- 3. “When it comes to this city, I mean, I’m so vocal about how much I care,” Drake told CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi, the former host of arts and culture radio show Q on October 17, 2013. “All I ever wanna do is just see this city get the recognition and the love it deserves, see people from this city shine. Y’know, I put a lot of people in positions to do great things. That’s all I wanna keep doing.” Drake has managed to jam his Canadian foot in the backdoor of the American mainstream music market, and he is holding that door open behind him, smuggling in Canadian talent. But the musical immigration loophole isn’t one way. Once every year, Drake grants U.S. artists a Toronto music visa enabling them to walk back through that door into the Canadian market. The trade-‐off comes in the form of his OVO Fest. The OVO Fest, held annually since 2010 at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre during Caribana weekend, prides itself on fêting the crowd with an aggregate of both novel and veteran and local and international talent; tickets for the two-‐day long jubilation sell-‐out within minutes. Rick Ross, Bun B, Young Jeezy, Fabolous, Kardinal Offishall, Eminem, Jay-‐Z, The Weeknd, J. Cole, Lil Wayne, Nas, Stevie Wonder, Nicki Minaj, 2 Chainz, ASAP Rocky, French Montana, Waka Flocka Flame, Meek Mill, Snoop Dogg, James Blake, Wale, Big Sean, Ma$e, TLC, Kanye West, Lauryn Hill, YG, Trey Songz, 50 cent, G-‐Unit, Tinashe, PartyNextDoor, OB Brien, Majid Jordan, DJ Khaled, Outkast and Usher have all graced the OVO Fest stage. This year’s three-‐day revel even features a stint by famed comedian Kevin Hart. The diversity in artists competes only with the diversity in the audience. In the crowd, Toronto’s multiculturalism blooms in full-‐splendor. “We are definitely now seeing more and more different ethnicities and both males and females at Toronto hip-‐hop shows,” says PB $tyle$, director of A&R at Protect Yah Neck Records Canada. Toronto has always been hailed as the Mecca of multiculturalism but it can now, and only now, subsume hip-‐hop host to its attributes. “Stadium packed, just glad to see the city on the map I just gave the city life, it ain't about who did it first It's about who did it right” Wu-‐Tang Forever But the stadium wasn’t always packed nor was the city always on the map. “Performances largely happened in small bars,” says rapper More Or Les. “There wasn’t any viable infrastructure. There were groups of rappers, producers and DJs that existed, but didn’t necessarily work together to benefit themselves or hip-‐hop as a culture.”
- 4. Drake’s success and the opulence of the OVO Fest deceitfully distract from the curse that historically swathed Canadian hip-‐hop. Symptoms of which included no mainstream crossover success and no musical longevity. The first Canadian rapper to briefly break the curse was Maestro Fresh-‐Wes with his 1989 single, Let Your Backbone Slide, which breached the Top 40 and U.S. Billboard charts but failed to secure Maestro’s spot among the ranks of commercial American rappers. Toronto’s nascent scene then produced female emcee Miche Mee, who came close to curing the curse when she signed a record deal with an American label in 1998, becoming the first Canadian rapper ever to do so. But she failed to galvanize fans south of the border and her efforts resulted in no significant chart success. In that same year, Canadians were plotting their revenge. Vancouver hip-‐hop band Rascalz teamed up with fellow Canadians, Checkmate, Kardinall Offishal, Thrust and Choclair, to produce Northern Touch—an incendiary love-‐letter to Canadian hip-‐ hop that garnered both domestic and international radio play. The tune became Canadian hip-‐hop’s first hit sine 1991. The song served as the turning point in Canadian hip-‐hop, paving the launch pad for the eventual astronomical ascension of Torontonians Drake, K’naan and Kardinall Offishal. The track, however, did little in propelling any of the featured rappers’ individual careers save Kardinall Offishal’s. Kardi signed with established R&B singer Akon and released his single Dangerous, which shot up to number five on the Hot 100 and went triple platinum in Canada. Kardinall rode the momentum and followed up with two gold-‐certified singles. Those were to become the pinnacles of Kardinall’s career. That was in 2008, and in 2009 the curse was finally eradicated for good with Drake’s seminal release, Best I Ever Had. The song catapulted to number two on the Hot 100 and officially became the most successful Canadian hip-‐hop song ever in the U.S. But why did it take so long, or what did Drake know that everyone else didn’t? A year before Drake’s foray, Now Magazine published Toronto Hip-‐Hop’s Bad Rap— an article diagnosing hip-‐hop in Toronto or, more appropriately, the Screwface Capital. Writer Addi Stewart quotes Universal A&R rep David “Click” Cox. “[Canadian artists] need to find their own identity, create something special and unique.” Cox understood the solution, but even he probably wasn’t anticipating the nature of artistry that was afoot.
- 5. Stewart then cites old-‐school griot Kamau.“I think Canadian artists need to find their own identity, stop trying to fit into some box. Just be honest and communicate something you feel like communicating.” It’s as if Drake studied this piece, unearthed the blueprint, stretched it across his wall and commenced devising his Grammy-‐nominated So Far Gone—arguably the most special and unique independent hip-‐hop project of the last decade. “The game changed the minute Drake dropped So Far Gone.” Rapper J. Cole told Rap Radar’s Elliot Wilson, “I gotta come and play my best hand too cuz [Drake] clearly came with his.” On the tape, an independent Drake overdoses on candidness as he dissects his precarious relationships with women and his melancholic moods as he teeters on the precipice of uncertainty, flirting acutely with the possibility of failure while, simultaneously, seducing success. Rambunctious, upbeat moments of oozing confidence and boasting are intermittent. Drake’s ambitions and insecurities play hide-‐and-‐seek throughout the record, which is simply the internal, rap-‐sung soliloquy rumbling in Drake’s mind as he challenges himself to a staring contest in the mirror. Drake crossed every point on that article’s checklist. A mixed-‐race, half-‐Jewish, former Degrassi-‐actor, who grew up in posh Forest Hill, raps and sings about those very things. “He introduced a new way of doing it,” says vocal coach Nevon Sinclair, “by meshing rap and melody (singing) and people loved it.” Drake embraces his sensitivity and welcomes heartbreak, while at the same time brags about his bank account statements and how he should have called his grandmother in the nursing home. What box can they possibly toss that into? Drake didn’t run from his identity, he ran with it. An especially daring thing to do in a genre otherwise dominated by street narratives and gangster personas. Haters, or in the 6god’s case, atheists, often charge Drake with lacking street credibility and not being “hard” enough—but the Dubai crowd on the night of March 14, 2015 doesn’t seem to care. And why should they? Citizens of Dubai admire Drake for his love affair with his hometown and his urge to represent it, and that is what allows them to accept him as one of their own. Dubai, on the international map, is an anomaly just as Drake is on the hip-‐hop map. And that’s how they both manage to constantly one-‐up and re-‐invent themselves while forever staying true to their roots. Dubai may host the tallest building in the world, but it is in Toronto where the Views From The 6 have never been clearer.