Drake

Aubrey Drake Graham, known by his stage name, Drake, is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, actor, and businessman.

Drake initially gained recognition as an actor on the teen drama television series Degrassi: The Next Generation in the 2000s; intent on pursuing a career in music, he left the series in 2007 after releasing his debut mixtape Room for Improvement. He released two further independent projects, Comeback Season and So Far Gone, before signing to Young Money Entertainment in June 2009.

Drake released his debut studio album Thank Me Later in 2010, which debuted at #1 on the US Billboard 200 and was soon certified platinum. His next two releases, 2011's Take Care and 2013's Nothing Was the Same, were critically and commercially successful; the former earned him his first Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. In 2015, he released two mixtapes—the trap-influenced If You're Reading This It's Too Late and a collaboration with Future titled What a Time to Be Alive—both of which earned platinum certification in the U.S. His fourth album, Views (2016), broke several chart records. The dancehall-influenced album sat atop the Billboard 200 for 13 nonconsecutive weeks, becoming the first album by a male solo artist to do so in over 10 years. The album's second single, "One Dance," topped the charts in several countries, and became his first number-one single as a lead artist. That year, Drake led both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard 200 charts simultaneously for eight weeks.

Views achieved quadruple platinum status in the U.S. and earned over 1 million album-equivalent units in the first week of its release. It became Drake's best-selling album to date. Its lead single "Hotline Bling" peaked at #2 on the Hot 100 and received Grammy Awards for Best Rap/Sung Performance and Best Rap Song. In 2017, he released the "playlist" More Life. It became his seventh consecutive #1 on the Billboard 200 and set multiple streaming records. A year later, he released the double album Scorpion, which also broke several streaming records, and contains the Grammy Award-winning number-one single "God's Plan," and the bounce-infused #1 singles "Nice for What" and "In My Feelings."

In 2019, streaming service Spotify announced that Drake was their #1 streamed artist of the decade.