Music

Drake really did start from the bottom

by Chayne Japal

With “5AM In Toronto” destroying the internet last week, it’s a great time to take a step back, now that we’ve had some space, and look at the first part of Drake’s aggressive one-two punch, “Started From The Bottom.” The first single from his upcoming album Nothing Was The Same, and its hometown-homage video have simultaneously set Drake up to completely dominate the year and piss off tons of people that don’t understand how in the hell he could be saying what it sounds like he’s saying.

The simple, repetitive chorus has Drake chanting, “Started from the bottom, now we’re here,” and just about everyone, including folks that love the track, have called bullshit on that claim. They are incorrect. Though he was raised in a fairly upper-class Toronto suburb and had a gig acting on a family TV show before he broke out, when it comes to developing his career in hip-hop, these ‘advantages’ didn’t particularly work in his favour. They could have only worked against him.

Drake’s upbringing doesn’t necessarily match the rapper prototype. There’s an expectation for hip-hop artists to have faced adversity growing up (and, in way, that can end up being their most endearing aspect, and makes them easier to root for). The motif of the down-and-out black kid busting through a system rigged against them to become a star has been seen again and again, but it never gets tired. Drake had a few more options growing up. Sure, he didn’t have a perfect childhood, no one does, but he wasn’t raised in the projects and he didn’t have to turn to criminal activity to get by. These unfortunate circumstances are basically prerequisites for a genre that, as popular as it has become, will always be linked to the streets. Drake’s decision to pursue rap was absurd considering that he wasn’t gutter enough but he still went for it, even though he’s a nice, friendly Canadian.

Toronto is, by far, the best city in the universe [ed note: Okay, Chayne.], but it hasn’t exactly been considered a hotbed for rappers. There’ve been sincerely talented hip-hop acts that have been able to make strides outside of Toronto, but there always seemed to be a ceiling for their success.

Take, for instance, Kardinal Offishall, an extremely gifted wordsmith with a magnetic personality and incredible energy. As much as Toronto loved (and still loves) him, it feels like he never had a real chance in U.S. markets, even with major-label backing. It’s accepted and understood because Kardi’s from Toronto. Hip-hop has long been dominated by acts from the U.S.’s biggest cities, starting with the rap Mecca, New York City. It took legendary feats for cities like L.A. (N.W.A.), Atlanta (Outkast), and Chicago (Common, Kanye West) to establish themselves; regional loyalty initially bred skepticism. When Drake won over the masses, he continued to rep Toronto at every possible instance, gradually bringing attention and respect to his beloved hometown.

Then there’s Jimmy. While many people consider it to be his big break, Drake’s portrayal of Jimmy on Degrassi: The Next Generation has been his biggest hurdle, one that he still deals with. Countless memes and uploaded clips that document his most emotional and nerdy moments on the teenage soap opera have actually gone further than the show’s initial reach. Degrassi is extremely popular, but its demographic doesn’t necessarily line-up with rapper-Drake’s whole audience, but, out of curiosity, they check it out and instantly dock him cool points when they see him playing the paralyzed high school student. It’s unfair, but it’s a part of the game, and Drake has taken it in good stride. It always comes up but he has been able to move forward with his rap career while somehow never shaking his now immortalized Wheelchair Jimmy.

With all this working against him, it’s actually a complete anomaly that Drake has attained the level of critical and commercial success that he as. His immaculate streak of guest spots in 2012 further affirmed his divine status during what could be considered a year off, and now he’s set up to do even better.

There’s no way an upper-class, half-Jewish kid from Toronto who decided to rap for a living should ever turn out to be one the most popular, lucrative, and influential hip-hop artists of the decade, but Drake has done that, against all odds. His story isn’t a rags to riches one, it’s about how a would-be pariah overcame everything that should have made him an outcast to become a leader. Started.