*December 2019 update: Spotify has announced that Drake has been the most listened to artist of the decade on his streaming platform.
Drake has felt the whiplash of the public's boos for the first time in his life. And if it was just that. In recent years, Drake has confirmed his status as an artist blessed by the cloak of immortality. having been able to dodge all the attacks he has received. From the discovery (in a song!) of a secret son to accusations of not being the author of his songs. The Canadian rapper has not only turned a deaf ear to the knocks, but has managed to feed off them to become the number one artist in the music industry worldwide and the most listened to on Spotify in 2018. Take a walk and see how they Drake manages them, whose real name should be Drake the immortal.
Drake, absolute leader
Although in Spain it may not enjoy the same popularity as in the US, Drake is the most influential and tallest artist of the moment in the whole world. Even more than Kanye West.
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Throughout his five published albums, Champagne Papi has known how to find and perfect a perfect balance between pop, rap and R&B. For this reason, because his success is absolute, it is difficult to find an explanation for the boos that Drake has received this week at the festival of Tyler the creator, Camp Flog Gnaw, held in Los Angeles.
Like I said, I'm here for you. If you want me to continue, I'll continue », interrupted Drake in the middle of his performance at Camp Flog Gnaw.
After managing to get out without a single scratch from scandals like the one about the secret son he took from her pusha-t in a beef, and the discovery (and subsequent confession) that he does not write all his songs, Drake has left the stage for the first time and before finishing his setlist. The explanation of why is, at the same time, the explanation of why rap has become the global mass phenomenon that it is today.
Drake not everyone likes
If we pay attention to patterns such as the Billboard chart, Youtube visits, radio programming and the carousel of today's news, it is clear that hip hop is the dominant music genre on the planet. Almost a year ago Spotify published its annual statistical report, and in it we saw how, for the first time, rap surpassed pop in all fields of analysis.
Choose one criterion, it doesn't matter: hip hop is the number one music trend in the world. In addition to having signed the most listened album of the year 2018 (Scorpion), Drake also topped the list of most streamed artists of the year (Post Malone, XXXTENTACION, J Balvin, Ed Sheeran, Eminem, Ozuna, Bad Bunny, Khalid and Ariana Grande). But if we have discovered something this week, it is that Drake likes everyone, but not everyone.
The main reason the crowd at Camp Flog Gnaw booed Drake was his very presence.
Announced by surprise, the festival audience kept hoping that the guest artist who was hiding behind the ??????? of the promotional poster was to be Frank Ocean. The Tyler the Creator festival, which with 2019 adds eight editions, already had Frank Ocean at Camp Flog Gnaw in 2013. Not happy with the disappointment of seeing Drake, attendees had to endure quite a long set of songs. Until he got tired, she asked if they wanted to continue listening to him. After the new boos, Drake left the stage. In a fit of modesty, he signed off by saying "my name is Drake."
Tyler The Creator festival poster where Drake got the boos
Camp Flog Naw: there will be Drake for a while
The booing of Drake is better understood if we pay attention to the very nature of the festival, aimed at artists with more alternative or minority content (last year one of the big names on the bill was Lana del Rey). Without going any further, the very organizer, Tyler The Creator, is one of the greatest exponents today of the new experimental hip hop that is causing a furor (he placed his album Igor at number 1 on Billboard this year) and that mixes an amalgam of genres and sounds somewhere between rap and electronic music.
Tyler, who has taken good note of the matter (he reacted on Twitter with a staunch defense of Drake), has made a move by hiring him for future editions of the festival. Drake himself has announced it on his Instagram profile:
“Turn of events… I just signed a 10 year residency at Camp Flog Gnaw. Sorry kids, we see each other EVERY YEAR until you're 30."
Drake takes advantage of bad news to make it positive.
And so all the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fIFJg0rAiM
Drake the Immortal
This week's boos are nothing compared to what the jaded rapper has endured in the recent past. But if we have taken note of something with Drake in recent years, it is his unusual ability to recover from whiplash. To come out stronger from the lashes. Also in 2018 and during his song fight With rapper Pusha-T, Drake suffered a couple of death blows that, seen over time, made no dent in his artistic career:
secret son
Pusha T revealed in the theme The story of Addidon that Drake had a son he had never said a word about and that he was the product of a relationship with a porn actress. Drake limited himself to referring to the matter in Scorpion in the song March 14. More than a response to Pusha T, the topic was a love letter to his son in which he assures her that he will try to be a good father. Not a single mention of how Pusha T discovered the cake.
Photograph with painted face blackface
without abandoning the song The story of Addison, Pusha T used to illustrate the cover of the single an unpublished photograph of Drake with his face painted as a pure black person (the way white actors were painted to play black people in stale mid-XNUMXth-century Hollywood). Drake, who is actually black, has been criticized in certain circles for his, shall we say, low level of blackness.
Cover of Pusha-T's The Story of Adidon, featuring Drake in face paint
There are voices in the hip hop community that claim Drake has had easy access to global success because his complexion black light (he is the son of a white mother) fits better with the global patterns of an advertising industry that would continue to carry important racist tics. items like Drake may not be black in his songs but mixed in real life They reveal the artist's supposed lack of commitment to the problems faced by black people in the United States.
Drake, who already enjoyed a brief access to fame after being one of the protagonists of the youth series Degrassi, never tires of showing that there is always a different way to avoid controversy to reuse it and come out stronger from it.
Does Drake write his songs?
As a bonus, we must remember the controversy that Drake had been dragging for years about the authorship of his songs.
Following the eruption of a cataract of voices suggesting that Drake was enlisting the help of ghost writers for his songs, the artist himself acknowledged in 2015 that "music can be a collaborative process." The sambenito haunts him ever since, making his name not even appear on the lists of best rappers that were so popular this year on Twitter. For now, and according to his activity on social networks, the Canadian does not seem too concerned about it. This same year, Drake bought his first private plane.
