Aubrey Drake Graham was born on October 24, 1986 in Toronto, Ontario. His father, Dennis Graham, is African-American and a practicing Catholic from Memphis, Tennessee, who worked as a drummer, performing alongside country musician Jerry Lee Lewis.[16][17] His mother, Sandra "Sandi" Graham (née Sher), is a Canadian, from an Ashkenazi Jewishfamily, who worked as an English teacher and florist.[18][19][20][21][22] Dennis Graham performed at Club Bluenote in Toronto, where he met Sandra Sher, who was in attendance.[17] Drake is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, having American citizenship due to his American father.[23][24][25] In his youth, he attended a Jewish day school, and became a bar mitzvah.[26][27]
Drake's parents divorced when he was five years old. After the divorce, he and his mother remained in Toronto; his father returned to Memphis, where he was incarcerated for a number of years on drug-related charges.[28] Graham's limited finances and legal issues caused him to remain in the United States until Drake's early adulthood. Prior to his arrest, however, Graham would travel to Toronto and bring Drake to Memphis every summer.[29][30][31] His father later collaborated with Canadian music group Arkells on the music video for a song titled "Drake's Dad".[32] Graham claimed in an interview that Drake's assertions of him being an absent father were embellishments used to sell records,[33] which Drake vehemently denies.[34]
Drake was raised in two Toronto neighbourhoods. He lived on Weston Road in the city's working-class west end[30] until grade six, playing minor hockeywith the Weston Red Wings.[35] He then moved to one of the city's affluent neighbourhoods, Forest Hill, in 2000.[36][37] When asked about the move, Drake replied, "[We had] a half of a house we could live in. The other people had the top half, we had the bottom half. I lived in the basement, my mom lived on the first floor. It was not big, it was not luxurious. It was what we could afford."[38]
He attended Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, where he demonstrated an affinity for the arts, first acting while an active student at the school.[39] He later attended Vaughan Road Academy in the city's multicultural Oakwood–Vaughan neighbourhood. Due to the economic status associated with the neighbourhood, Drake described the school as "not by any means the easiest school to go to."[30] Drake was often bullied at school for his racial and religious background,[40] and upon realizing that his busy class schedule was detrimental to his burgeoning acting career, Drake dropped out of school.[41] He later graduated in October 2012.[42]
At the age of 15, Drake, eager to begin his career as an actor, was introduced to a high school friend's father, an acting agent.[43] The agent found Drake a role on the Canadian teen drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation. Drake portrayed Jimmy Brooks,[44] a basketball star who became physically disabled after he was shot by a classmate. Drake reportedly disliked this character arc because of its apparent tokenism (his was one of the only black characters in the series), and he also believed it could negatively influence his standing as a rapper. Longtime series writer James Hurst said that Drake threatened legal action to redo the storyline, before ultimately agreeing to it.[45] Madeleine Robinson, the executive director of the Californian non-profit organization Wheelchair 4 Kids, praised the storyline and Drake's performance, noting "he instilled confidence and representation" to disabled youth.[46] When asked about his early acting career, Drake replied, "My mother was very sick. We were very poor, like broke. The only money I had coming in was [from] Canadian TV."[30] He appeared in a total of 100 episodes between 2001 and 2008.[47] In 2010, Drake expressed interest in playing Barack Obama in a biopic, to which Obama responded with approval in an interview in 2020.[48]
According to Degrassi series creators Stephen Stohn and Linda Schuyler, Drake regularly arrived late on set after spending nights recording music. To prevent this, Schuyler claimed Drake struck an agreement with the set's security guards to gain entry to the set after recording to be allowed to sleep in a dressing room.[49]
Being musically inspired by Jay-Z and Clipse, Drake self-released his debut mixtape, Room for Improvement, in 2006. The mixtape featured Trey Songz and Lupe Fiasco, and included vast production from Canadian producers Boi-1da and Frank Dukes. When asked about the mixtape, Drake described the project as "pretty straightforward, radio friendly, [and] not much content to it." Room for Improvement was released for sale only and sold roughly 6,000 copies,[44] for which Drake received $304.04 in royalties.[51] In 2007, he released his second mixtape Comeback Season. Released from his recently founded October's Very Own label, it spawned the single "Replacement Girl" featuring Trey Songz. The song made Drake become the first unsigned Canadian rapper to have his music video on BET, with "Replacement Girl" featured on their "New Joint of the Day" segment in April 2007.[52]The song also saw Drake sample "Man of the Year" by Brisco, Flo Rida and Lil Wayne, retaining Lil Wayne's verse, and adjoined his own to the song's earlier half. This caused Jas Prince to gift Lil Wayne the song, which prompted the rapper to invite Drake to Houston to join his Tha Carter III tour.[53]Throughout the duration of the tour, Drake and Lil Wayne recorded multiple songs together, including "Ransom", "Forever", and a remix to "Brand New".[53]
In 2009, Drake released his third mixtape So Far Gone. It was made available for free download through his OVO blog website, and featured Lil Wayne, Trey Songz, Omarion, Lloyd, and Bun B. It received over 2,000 downloads in the first 2 hours of release, finding mainstream commercial success from the singles "Best I Ever Had" and "Successful", both gaining Gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), with the former also peaking at number two on the BillboardHot 100.[54] This prompted the mixtape's re-release as an EP, featuring only four songs from the original, as well as the additions of the songs "I'm Goin' In" and "Fear". It debuted at number six on the Billboard200, and won the Rap Recording of the Year at the 2010 Juno Awards.[55]
Due to the success of the mixtape,[56] Drake was the subject of a bidding war from various labels, often reported as "one of the biggest bidding wars ever".[57] Despite this, Drake was rumoured to have secured a recording contract with Young Money Entertainment on June 29, 2009.[58] This was later confirmed following a planned lawsuit from Young Money, in conjunction with Drake, against an unauthorized fake album titled The Girls Love Drakereleased on iTunes.[59][vague]
Drake then joined the rest of the label's roster on the America's Most Wanted Tour in July 2009.[60]However, during a performance of "Best I Ever Had" in Camden, New Jersey, Drake fell on stage and tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.[61]He underwent surgery later that year.
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