So Far Gone is How I’ll be at Rites of Spring

The Rites of Spring line up has been announced: Ben Harper and the Relentless7, Melanie Fiona, Doug E. Fresh, Passion Pit, Cold War Kids, and Drake. Wait! Drake…as in Drake Bell from Drake and Josh or Francis Drake, the swashbuckling pirate of the seven seas. If you were thinking any of the above, you were wrong. The Drake performing at Rites of Spring is none other than Aubrey Drake Graham; better known as Drizzy Drake by overzealous fans, Drake by the tabloids and Jimmy Brooks the wheelchair kid from the hit Canadian show. The writers at The Slant have a slew of nicknames we’d prefer to call him, but we feel that “That rapper who got one more Grammy nomination than Soulja Boy Tell’em” would only serve to switch Mr. Tell’em’s attention from his “successful” rap career to our measly newspaper. Despite this, The Slant believes that the Vanderbilt community deserves to know who exactly this seemingly talented entertainer is.

Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, similar to where every other rapper began their successful careers, Drake’s boyish charm and bass deficient voice scored him the role as Jimmy Brooks on the Canadian high school drama Degrassi. In the show, Brooks is a basketball star who became physically disabled after he was shot in the back by a classmate. Possibly seeing the end to his stint on television, Drake released his first mixtape on Myspace prompting me to wonder how one decides to go from Canadian television star to Myspace mixtape releaser, but because this was a Myspace release, the jump couldn’t have been but so far. Drake’s role on the show ended in 2009, when his character finally graduated from Degrassi High…at the age of 23; proving that Canadian television producers couldn’t get over the fact that real Canadian schools allow people to stay in high school until the age of 24. This did a lot for Drake, considering the majority of kids on Myspace were probably in high school during this time.

Regardless, Drake skyrocketed to success off of his many mixtapes, none of which can be downloaded while on campus, which leads me to believe that there are many of us on campus who still have a Myspace account. Nonetheless, the positive reviews Drake received led him to be signed with Lil Wayne’s recording label, “Young Money.” This ragtag group of rappers consists of a slew of colorfully named characters like Nicki Minaj, Gudda Gudda, Tyga, Lil’ Twist, Mack Maine and Lil Chuck. Luckily Drake was spared a ridiculous nickname that seems so characteristic of this group.

Despite his lackluster early career, unimpressive upbringings and lack of a studio album, Drake surprisingly puts out good music. His use of metaphors and punchlines combined with his clever usage of words, Lil Way…I mean Drake is an unusually talented rapper. His influence spreads from Facebook statuses, to Twitter posts and pretty soon, according to Drake, he’ll be “All up in yo slot til a —– hit the jackpot.” Of course this article doesn’t really do much to help since only about 8% of this entire campus really knows who he is or cares.

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