Drake superior

It was around that time that Drake started handing out CDs at his day job, on the Degrassi set. The cast and crew immediately recognized his talent and encouraged him to give a disc to the show’s co-creator Linda Schuyler, thinking this was something he could showcase on the series. According to Schuyler, Drake (he’s still Aubrey to her) was hesitant. “He said, ‘I do some swearing on it and I don’t know if I want Linda to hear it.’ Which is so cute.” The other problem with bringing his music to the show, says Stefan Brogren, who plays Snake in both the original Degrassi and in The Next Generation, was that Drake didn’t think his character Jimmy would rap. “We said whatever rap you do it doesn’t have to be Drake-level hip hop,” says Brogren, who is also one of the series’ directors. “In fact, it needs to be less. He did do it in the end. And I think he was happy.”

Schuyler, Brogren and Degrassi’s screenwriters are impressed by his skills. “The writers,” says Schuyler, “say his lyrics are eloquent, clear, honest and he’s going through a lot of genuine self-examination.” Adds Brogren: “I find his lyrics really truthful about who he is, the darker side, though. He’s half-black, half-Jewish, with a white mom—so many different backgrounds that he maybe never felt accepted in certain circles. It would feel false if he was talking about gangbanging, but he raps about his experience.”

Actually, he mostly raps about his ladies. R & B queen Mary J. Blige has named him the “saviour” on the basis of his song Best I’ve Ever Had. “The kid Drake is the best,” she told a camera crew at Summer Jam ’09. “I love what they’re singing about, they’re bigging up women again. They’re making women feel special. It came to the point where women were just bitches and hos, and he came around and said, ‘You the best.’ ” In interviews, Drake works the sensitive side. “I’m single,” he told a female radio host in April. “Twenty-two and very much single. Very good man. I like to cook. I like to throw on sweatpants and cook—give a nice massage. But I like women though, women who have a presence and self-awareness, and who are educated, ambitious and funny.” If the rumours are true, Rihanna may have found herself a keeper this time around.

“My God, you look at those two faces together,” Schuyler gushes about Drake and Rihanna, “and you think, that’s pretty stunning.” She’s proud like a mom, and rightfully so—she’s the one who spotted him at 13. “We were looking for an athletic, friend-of-everybody type,” she says. “Aubrey had a charm about him, and a warmth, that same beautiful smile he has now. He was green as anything, but willing to do whatever it takes.” When the series broke big in the U.S., the cast members did a string of mall tours south of the border. “We would get 3,000 or 4,000 kids and Aubrey even then had this aura about him as a rock star.”

But can a Canadian child TV star handle all that’s expected of him and all that goes along with the stardom he seems destined for? The paparazzi are on the prowl for the hotly anticipated photo of him and Rihanna. He’s threatening to sue a Canadian label that released an unauthorized album of his; he’s got a public beef with fellow Toronto rapper Kardinal Offishall. And he’s the target of an Internet backlash—that most artists don’t experience until they’ve at least had a No. 1 album—which led to an allhiphop.com editorial: “The hate toward him is puzzling considering what he’s achieving before our eyes. Is there loathing because he’s got a shot with Rihanna? Or that he is a fair-skinned, half-Jewish Canadian and not from the South Bronx or the Dirty South? Perhaps the hate stems from his close link with another ‘detested’ (and million-in-one-week-selling) rapper, Lil Wayne?”

This certainly wasn’t something that the original Degrassi kids ever had to worry about. No one from Zit Remedy was going to be courted for a recording contract.

The latest stars of the show, who came in last year after Drake’s character Jimmy had graduated, must be psyched. Instead of fading into the distance, maybe doing a guest spot on Degrassi every once in a while (as many of the graduates tend to do), Aubrey Graham changed his name and career path and is making surprise appearances on The Tonight Show—he showed up there last week with Jamie Foxx. “It’s like he’s a unicorn,” says Brogren. “The new kids are realizing, ‘Oh my God, he was on the show and he’s about to pop.’ I’m sure a lot of them are inspired to start their own rap crews now.”

By the time they get themselves established, expect Drake to be conquering something else. He’s been relishing the Will Smith comparisons: “I’m going to have the movies and s–t,” he promises. Mom should probably start clearing out the driveway.