Sunday Spotlight: Drake

Aubrey Drake Graham AKA simply Drake is today's Sunday Spotlight. Certified Lover Boy is already breaking streaming records worldwide. If you haven't heard it yet, you can stream it below.

Born October 24, 1986) in Toronto, Ontario, Drake got some serious attention featuring hit teen drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation. Following his TV appearance, Drake released his debut mixtape Room for Improvement in 2006. He followed up with the mixtapes Comeback Season in 2007 along with So Far Gone in 2009. He then signed to Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment.  Hence a number of Lil Wayne features on his tracks.

Drake released his debut studio album Thank Me Later in 2010, which debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. He went on to achieve critical success with Take Care in 2011, featuring artists like Rihanna on the record.

Rihanna and Drake continued to work together across a number of their own tunes and others like NERD's Lemon. Too Good, What's Your Name and Work to name a few.

Nothing Was the Same in 2013 along with his first commercial mixtape If You're Reading This It's Too Late 2015 followed Take Care. Things were really heating up for Drake now.

With his fourth studio album Views, 2016, we got tracks like One Dance (huge), Too Good (as mentioned above) and Controlla. Hotline Bling was also added to the blockbuster 20 track album.

The album topped the Billboard 200 for 13 nonconsecutive weeks, becoming the first album by a male solo artist to do so in over a decade.

Marketed as a playlist, Drake's second solo commercial mixtape More Life, 2017 set multiple streaming records and received critical appraisal. We got a change in direction with some killer tracks like Passionfruit and Get it Together with Black Coffee and Jorja Smith.

In 2018, Drake went supersize with Scorpion. The double album produced three number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. 

Departing Young Money in 2018, Drake's third commercial mixtape Dark Lane Demo Tapes was released in 2020, and featured the Hot 100 number-one lead single Toosie Slide.

Among the world's best-selling music artists, with over 170 million records sold, Drake is ranked as the highest-certified digital singles artist in the United States by the RIAA.

He has won four Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, a record 27 Billboard Music Awards, two Brit Awards, and three Juno Awards, and holds several Billboard chart records; Drake has the most top 10 placements on the Billboard Hot 100, the most charted songs (231) ever on the Hot 100, the most simultaneously charted Hot 100 songs in one week (27), the most continuous time on the Hot 100 (431 weeks), and the most Hot 100 debuts in one week (22). He also has the most number-one singles on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, Hot Rap Songs, and Rhythmic Airplay charts.

Certified Lover Boy is just the next chapter in Drake's monster career to date. Its been a huge few weeks of Sunday Spotlights, so return next week for another killer Sunday Spotlight!