Drake

Drake Was Gifted A Rolls Royce He Used To Rent To ‘Keep Up Appearances’ As A Young Rapper

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Everyone knows Scorpio season kicks off with Drake’s birthday. As the mogul rapper turns 35 today, his longtime friends had to come through with a gift that fit the occasion. Obviously, the celebration kicked off with a massive, themed party, this year it was a Narcos theme and guests like Future, YG and Offset all stopped by to celebrate.

But one friend, Future The Prince, had an extra special gift for The Boy, a Rolls Royce Phantom like the one a young Drake used to rent in order to keep up appearances. He even paid $5,000 a month just to rent the thing! Check out his heartfelt gratitude and reflection on the gift below, he explains it better than I ever could.

“Back in 2007 we used to finesse this Rolls Royce Phantom rental to convince people in the city we were destined to make it. I used to scrape together 5k a month somehow to keep up appearances. We whipped this to Ottawa to see @belly and @cashxo and to Montreal for my first show ever. I used to pick up @ovoniko and roll every day or wait outside @nebzilla class for her. Park outside 15 Fort York while me and @ovo40 and @oliverelkhatib would be upstairs cooking what would eventually become So Far Gone. Even though I don’t recommend putting yourself in financial trouble for material things I realize now that this was just my way of extreme manifesting. I needed to see it and feel it and have it to believe that I could see and feel and have anything I wanted. Today in 2021 my brother @futuretheprince tracked down the exact car I use to stress over and gifted it to me…it’s mine now. Manifestation complete. Thank you for all the love and appreciation and gifts and texts and dm’s…more than just loved I feel truly appreciated and that is the only gift I ever needed. TREY FIVE EASY MONEY DRIZZY 😈 let’s get this shit. BLICK EMMMMMM 🤞🏽”

That plus a No. 1 single with “Way 2 Sexy” off his new album Certified Lover Boy should make 2021 a pretty good year for Drake.

Drake Celebrated His 35th Birthday With A Narcos-Themed Party Featuring YG, Future, Jack Harlow, And More

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Just a month removed from the release of his sixth album Certified Lover Boy, Drake recently had another reason to celebrate, that being his 35th birthday. The rapper officially celebrates a new year of life today, but he got the festivities going a day early with a party in Los Angeles on Saturday night.

The event took place in the city’s Goya Studios and the theme of the night was Narcos as it found some guests like YG, Future, and the rapper’s dad Dennis Graham following it while others like Offset, French Montana, and Jack Harlow kept it casual for the night.

The birthday event comes after Certified Lover Boy spent a fourth non-consecutive week at No. 1 on the album charts. It’s one of eight albums in 2021 to spend multiple weeks atop the charts and it comes after the project spent three straight weeks at No. 1. Including Drake’s album, only four projects have spent a total of three weeks atop the chart year: Taylor Swift’s Evermore, Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album.

Drake also made a surprise appearance during J. Cole’s The Off-Season Tour and called the Dreamville artist “one of the greatest rappers” in a brief speech during the show.

You can check out a video from the night above.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Drake’s Return To The Raptors’ Arena Reminds Fans Of A ‘Key & Peele’ Sketch

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It has been a while since any basketball has been played at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena — aka “Jurassic Park,” because “The Toronto Raptors,” naturally — so you’d be forgiven for forgetting that local rap hero Drake actually has a position with the team. Aside from being a courtside fixture and occasionally popping up in the broadcast booth, Drake is also a “Global Ambassador” for the team, which is ostensibly a marketing gig but seems to entail a lot of sideline trolling, such as a little trash talk with Montrezl Harris in last night’s season opener.

Drake’s return to Jurassic Park is also once again generating viral memes after a video of Drake greeting his fellow regulars at the arena posted by the Raptors Twitter and reposted by Sportscenter reminded fans of a classic sketch from Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele Comedy Central show, Key & Peele. If you haven’t already you can watch the sketch above. In it, Jordan Peele impersonates President Barack Obama, lightly satirizing Obama’s habit of “code-switching” on the fly — even at official State functions.

Fans immediately noticed that Drake took a similar tack (for what it’s worth, the parallels between Drake and Obama would make a fascinating feature, someone remind me to pitch that) with fellow fans at Scotiabank Arena, giving some daps and pounds while greeting others with polite handshakes. Some also noticed that the fan who received the handshake appeared to be SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, wondering whether Drake wasn’t feeling the billionaire. Check out some of the responses below.

Drake, Rick Ross & Problem Make Cannabis Moves

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Drake - Cannabis Moves

Rick Ross has partnered with Rap Snacks and Green Globe’s Hempacco to develop and manufacture Hemp Hop Smokables. The new line of hemp smokables will include rolling paper and hemp cannabinoid cigarettes. “Having had my own health scares, and through my healing process, I decided I would develop a line of smokables to help others […]

Montrezl Harrell Clarified That He Did Not Get A Technical Foul For Arguing With Drake

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Montrezl Harrell’s first game as a member of the Washington Wizards ended with a 98-83 win over the Toronto Raptors and one technical foul in his back pocket. That tech ended up getting a whole lot of attention, because it looked like it came because the Wizards’ big man was jawing with noted Raptors fan Drake during the game.

The video makes it look like Harrell, who has never been shy about wearing his heart on his sleeve during games, was getting wound up while having a conversation with Drake, who appeared to find whatever was going on pretty funny.

That was not exactly what happened, though. After the game, Harrell made clear that the technical foul did not come because of anything he was doing with Drake. Instead, he got T’d up for a conversation with a Raptors coach, while he and Drake went back-and-forth in a far more cordial manner.

“I need my money back first, NBA,” Harrell said. “I definitely need my money back, because that definitely shouldn’t have been no tech. If so, you’ve got to give to me and the coach. Me and Drake was laughing. There was no problems there, me and Drake cool, we even talked after the game. It was a cool conversation, but it turned left when the coach started chiming in behind the bench, thinking that barking is something that’s gonna shake me.

“I don’t need all of Toronto on my bumper now,” Harrell continued. “I don’t need Toronto on my bumper now. Don’t start DMing me on Instagram now. Me and Drake cool.”

Let it go in the record books: Montrezl Harrell did not get a technical foul for getting into an argument with Drake. This, of course, does not mean an NBA player somewhere down the line won’t get one for chirping at Drake during a Raptors game.

Big Sean Delivers A Blistering LA Leakers Freestyle Over Songs By Drake, Jay-Z, Kanye West, And More

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It only took Big Sean five albums to find his way onto LA Leakers, the famed show on LA’s Power 106 platform that welcomes rappers to lay their hottest bars. The Detroit rapper took the mic for the show’s 122nd episode and he did not disappoint, freestyling for nearly nine minutes in an episode released on Wednesday. During his appearance, Sean rapped over Kanye West’s “Hurricane,” on which he originally had a verse, Drake and Jay-Z’s “Love All,” Jay-Z and Memphis Bleek’s “Dear Summer,” and Nardo Wick’s “Who Want Smoke??”

During his appearance, Sean touched on a number of topics. He spoke about Kanye West signing his advance check to him before officially bringing him onto the GOOD Music roster, being with Kobe Bryant on New Year’s Day in 2020 just weeks before the Lakers legend passed away, and NBA players shooting their shot in his girlfriend’s DMs. He also addressed artists he wrote hit songs for that failed to pay him for his work. “A lot of songs I wrote for icons that I still ain’t even get publishing on / And some of them up more than me,” he raps. “I don’t know how they sleep at night knowing they wrong.”

Sean celebrated his freestyle in a pair of posts on Twitter, writing, “Y’all really playing wit me man! Okay!” and “Donda signed my advance check on God, that’s how long we been at this…”

We Asked Twitter What the Most Misheard Hip-Hop Lyrics Are

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Music is subjective in many ways. From a fan’s opinion about an artist and the songs they create to what the lyrics mean, there are different perspectives used in interpreting that music, especially within hip-hop. As the genre expands and evolves to create a more widespread impact, sometimes the rhymes gets lost in translation when listeners mishear lyrics. This happens often… Continue reading…

Drake’s Reluctant Portrayal Of A Paralyzed Student Receives Praise From The Nonprofit Wheelchairs 4 Kids

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After Drake’s reluctance to allow his Degrassi character Jimmy to be paralyzed after an episode about a school shooting became public, his portrayal is now being praised by the leader of an organization dedicated to kids with mobility issues for helping normalize wheelchairs. Madeline Robinson, executive director of Wheelchair 4 Kids, told TMZ that Drake’s role — however reticent he initially was to play it — gave kids in wheelchairs confidence. “When was the last time you went to a mall and saw a kid in a wheelchair hanging out with other kids?” she wondered, saying it’s rare.

“It is great when we see our kids being represented,” Robinson asserted. That was the logic that the show’s producers used to get Drake on board with the character development when the actor threatened to quit after seeing the script, worried that it would have a negative effect on his then-nascent rap career. In AV Club’s oral history of Degrassi: The Next Generation, writer James Hurst recalled telling Drake, “Aubrey, there’s some kid somewhere in a wheelchair, who’s completely ignored, who’s never on television, never gets represented. I need you to represent this person. You’re the coolest kid on the show, and you can say there’s nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair.”

Drake is now arguably the biggest star in hip-hop, so it’s clear he’s surmounted his worries, however well-founded they may have been.

Only One Other Artist Has Heard Adele’s Upcoming Album ’30’ And It’s Drake

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After years of waiting, Adele is back with new music, as her new single, “Easy On Me,” was released earlier today. Fans will be able to listen to Adele’s forthcoming album, 30, when it drops on November 19, but of course, there are people in Adele’s circle who have already heard the album. As for other artists who have had the privilege of getting an advance listen of 30, there’s only one: Drake.

In a Capital FM interview this morning, Adele was asked if she sent the album to anybody so she could get their thoughts on it, and she was quick to respond, “No.” She then continued, though, “I played it to Drake maybe last year, when he was in town, just to get… like, ‘Do you think this is what people want or not want,’ and he was like, ‘Absolutely.’ But that’s it, really. […] I don’t sent it around to various people being like, ‘Can I get your thoughts on this?’”

This comes after Drake gave the new song a co-sign: After it was released, he took to his Instagram Story to spread the word about the track and show love for his pal, writing, “One of my best friends in the world just dropped a single.”

30 is out 11/19 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.