In the Hip Hop community, G.O.A.T. is defined as the Greatest Of All Time. Usually people will have someone fall in that category because they are the best of their time, transcend time or culturally change how everyone in the community behaves. Whether that change is language, sound or how to operate, if it’s completely different and successful you can be in the G.O.A.T. category. Some rappers who are considered to be G.O.A.T.s are Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, The Notorious B.I.G. and Eminem. But could Drake be gunning to be apart of this category?
Aubrey Drake Graham was born October 24, 1986. He is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur. But most people initially know him as an actor on the teen drama television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. He left the show in 2007 to pursue his career as a rapper. Prior to leaving he released his debut mixtape, Room for Improvement, in 2006. He released two more independent works, Comeback Season and So Far Gone. By June 2009 he signed to Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment.
Drake’s rising star within the Hip Hop community has been receiving critical acclaim for a long time and countless amount of times he has proven himself to be a leader within conversations about other rappers i.e J.Cole and Kendrick Lamar. His most recent song “Nice for What” immediately grabbed my attention not just for its catchy sample of Lauryn Hill’s rendition of her song “Ex-Factor” but the video’s powerful imagery of successful women in Hollywood. Drake plans to drop his new album “Scorpion” in June, and I predict it will solidify him as one of the smartest pop cultural icons we have seen since Michael Jackson.
Now I am not saying he is on the same level or better than Jackson but Drake has shown a level of intelligence Jackson had reached all throughout his career. The video for “Nice for What” shows so many young and veteran women in Hollywood who are powerful and come from different walks of life but can come together and celebrate each other in their own ways. This video shows that Drake is not just a rapper or a musical artist but someone who watches the trends of his surroundings. He notices that his audience is changing drastically every day.
His former label mate Tyga tried to put his album cover out there and reached nothing but backlash. The cover shows a woman in a sexually suggestive position and being animalistic. The Hip Hop community prior to 2013 would have accepted this album with no problems. But because people are becoming more woke and hoping to be challenged by the artists they listen to on a daily basis this cover was given.
This parallel shows how the Hip Hop community is beginning to grow beyond accepting rappers who only speak about money, sex and partying.
Michael Jackson made a lot of songs that were progressive, raw and honest to his audience like “They Don’t Really Care About Us”, “Earth Song”, “Black or White” and “Heal the World.” By being able to recognize the changes in his time Jackson was able to reinvent himself for decades and transcend his music past generations. If the content of Drake’s next album continues to be progressive like the message behind “Nice for What” and the symbols of womanhood in the video we may see that star power again.
