Drake

Massively popular rap star with over five million records sold and loads of awards.  Came up as the protege to Lil' Wayne, after a short career as a teen actor.  Drake's delivery is definitely similar to Lil' Wayne's, but he sings a lot during his hits.  Heavy into the kind of sad, soul-baring R&B style of singing his own hooks within rap songs.

In about 2010, I was in a movie theater in Portland, Oregon, waiting for the show to start, when a Sprite commercial came on.  The four high school aged girls in front of us in the theater literally squealed with excitement and pain when they saw Drake speak on the screen.  It was extremely weird, especially since I had no flipping clue who the dude was at the time.  Made me feel extremely old.

"Marvin's Room," from 2011's Take Care, is a great example of the kind of raps Drake has become famous for.  He sings about being drunk in his room and calling a girl that he wants to hook up with, to tell her that she could do better than her current man.  I mean, is there more of a passive-aggressive, sad-sack way to tell a lady you are interested in her?  The tune is very low energy as well, dark synths and spare base bumps.  He even notes that he's having a hard time adjusting to fame.  The song ends with a lovely little piano outro.  It's just such an odd, depressing rap song, in an era of brags and parties and excitement.

His first album, 2010's Thank Me Later, starts off in the same vein with a piano ballad-based Alicia Keys tune with him sounding unsure about fame and fabulous-ness.  But the guy has Alicia Keys, T.I., Nicki Minaj, Jay Z, and Lil Wayne, among others, on his debut album, so he's doing pretty damn well.  The top song off of this album leaves behind that sad, introspective vibe to brag over a choice beat.  Here is "Over."

Solid track.  And this album also had hits with "Fancy" and "Find Your Love."  I definitely like the true rap tracks more than the R&B-flavored singing songs.  2011's Take Care had "Marvin's Room" (up above) as a hit, but also spawned "Headlines," "Take Care," and "The Motto," which is all about Drake living YOLO:

"Headlines" is also a good one, with the great line of him saying someone told him he fell off, to which he responds that he "needed that." And the flow of his lyrics on that track are so good.  Like Thank Me Later, I'd have to say that this one is up and down, with the straight rap being better to me than the R&B.

Nothing Was the Same, from 2013, was the first time that I ever really started paying attention to Drake.  Hits included "Started from the Bottom" and "Hold On, We're Going Home," with other really solid tracks on this album as well ("All Me (with 2Chainz and Big Sean)," "The Language (with a cool, off-beat delivery)," "Pound Cake (great except for Jay Z's tourette's-esque need to say the word "cake" 800 times), and "Worst Behavior."  Best album he's got, as far as I'm concerned.

Drake put out a new mixtape a few weeks ago, and it was not my favorite.  Its not terrible, but nothing on there jumped out at me after a few listens.  The first four tracks on this album each have over 28 million listens on Spotify, so other people apparently dig these tracks. Or he's just huge enough to get the benefit of the doubt.  Not sure which.  Drake's got a new album coming out this year, to be called View from the Six (or something like that).  I'll check it out when it comes out and we'll see.

More important that a lot of his album work, Drake has been on a jillion other people's tracks to add a verse or two.  The new Big Sean album, Nicki Minaj, Lil' Wayne, Future, YG, Justin Timberlake, DJ Khalid, 2 Chainz, French Montana, Rick Ross, Bieber, Rhianna, Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z, you name just about any major rap star currently on top.  The ones that I remember best of all are his verse on Nicki Minaj's Truffle Butter (sick beat!) and A$AP Rocky's "F**kin' Problems."  Obviously, NSFW:

Another great beat, plus his braggadocio is spot on.

Oh, and "Trophies," from an otherwise pretty bad compilation disc for the Young Money label, is also pretty damn awesome.  I'm a sucker for rap songs backed by horns though.

Regardless of what the new album sounds like, I think this will be a pretty fun show.  I'd prefer that he just stick to the straight rap, but either way, to get a chance to see one of the top current rappers do his thing will be pretty awesome.