Drake



__**Biography**__ Aubrey “Drake” Graham was born October 24, 1986. He is a Canadian actor, rapper and singer. Drake was born in Toronto and stayed with his mother, a white educator, after his parents divorced when he was 5. He was raised in the well-off and predominately Jewish neighborhood of Forest Hill and began acting in high school at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, although he did not graduate. Music is a big part of Drake's bloodline; his father, African American musician Dennis Graham, played drums for Jerry Lee Lewis, and his uncles include Sly & the Family Stone bassist Larry Graham and Memphis music stalwart Teenie Hodges. Drake is best known for playing Jimmy Brooks, the physically disabled character on Degrassi: The Next Generation. The "Degrassi" role, which Drake, a self described class clown, got through a classmate's father who was an agent, put Drake on the entertainment map and unwittingly spurred him to pursue music. Drake does not exemplify the stereotypical black rapper by using excessive profanity and vulgar themes. Drake shows how the blending of both cultures can surpass boundaries and generate popular music. He does not want to limit his music to people based on their race and/or age. That’s why de doesn’t really put a lot of swearing in his music. He wants everybody to be able to enjoy it. I think that he has an advantage with being bi-racial and being young along with being American and Canadian because it allows him to try and cover all the bases and expand his fan base to a level that has yet to be seen. I think with the right person and the right music, people from all walks of life can come together. “Nobody in Toronto's really rapped like this before," Drake said of making his mark. "The fact that there was a hook in his songs that were catchy, was very different there. A lot of people were like, “He doesn't even sound Canadian. He sounds American”.

Drake shares with Young Money’s Lil Wayne a certain vocal tone, but their styles are almost antonyms. Where Wayne rides his stream of consciousness through drug and gunplay into Freudian, almost hallucinatory nursery rhymes, Drake hews rigorously close to the guidelines of rap formalism, pumping an incredible volume of two- and three-syllable schemes out of the same subjects: girls, multi-colored whips and his skill in the booth. He seems to depart from this formula only to talk about his emotional state, an introspection that usually happens when he shifts from rap mode into catchy and sometimes haunting R&B. On his own records, he abandons Southern double-time to push genre boundaries more like Kanye.

__**Perspective 1 **__ The more you know about him, in fact, the harder it seems to know exactly who Drake is. There is something almost chameleon-like about his talent. If his appeal cannot be contained to a one-liner, it’s only because he invites a whole series of comparisons to his music: to Wayne’s inventiveness, Kanye’s art-school eclecticism, and R .Kelly’s singing. Though he reps Toronto to the fullest, during interviews Drake has said that a childhood split between his father’s base in Memphis and his mother’s house in Canada has allowed him to escape the territorial matrix of rap.

What is Cognitive Perspective? Explanations for human behavior that suggest that human behavior is at times thoughtful and can be controlled by thought processes. Indeed, the cognitive perspective suggests that much of human behavior is mediated by thought processes like memory and attention, belief systems, attitudes and language all which have a significant impact on why we do the things we do and act the way we act. Drake say’s that he has always been alone in my world. He has had a great relationship with both of his parents growing up, but he has never really been connected to anything, which caused him to think a lot throughout the years. His Memphis cousin was obsessed with Usher and provoked him to start singing little by little. All his life Drake felt like a misfit amongst the rich kids of the Forest Hills high school where he lasted one year. Drake grew up in a small, one floor duplex with a small backyard on a block of Forest Hills. He also spent many summers with his father in Memphis, Tennessee. He was known as the biracial kid with the single mom and a dad who was more like a little brother. People would say that about his dad because his dad had an overcool, shaft like personality, whereas his mother was very ambitious and was very generous. Drake has been rapping since he was real little. It was kind of natural thing for Drake to play around with music because he grew up with a dad who was a musician and also with uncles who were in the music industry. When he was asked during an interview which he would prefer more whether acting or singing he said that it’s a tough question to answer. He says he calls himself a raptor because it mixes both of them together. It’s almost impossible to just be one or the other because it’s like flipping on a light switch. There are two different sides of Drake and they happen to be Aubrey Graham the actor and Drake the rapper.

__**Perspective 2**__

What is socio-cultural perspective? The social/cultural perspective in psychology suggests that human behavior is influenced by social context, environmental cues, social pressures and cultural influences. We are all shaped by the context of our environment and influenced by the perception of authority in our social order. Social psychologists suggest that these forces are very powerful and explain a great deal about the causes of human behavior and thought processes. Drake has been influenced from his father, uncle, Al Green, Frank Sinatra, Pharrell, Kanye, and Jay-Z. He says he has also been influenced from his surroundings, experiences and course the South. Drake believes that throughout the years Hip Hop has changed dramatically from Hip Hop back in the day. The beats are catchy but sometimes it’s not really saying a lot musically. Drake is trying to give Hip Hop and the world a fresh new perspective on music. Drake has never been able to sit idly by and watch life pass, so that’s why he started getting out there in the music scene and made my own place in the music game.

__**Discussion**__ Being in the music industry like all other industries have their social pressures to be the best in the business. Drake and Nicki Minaj set the internet world crazy when they admitted that they have exchanged vows. The representatives of both the singers however denied the news to the media. Drake and Nicki Minaj joked about the whole incident and truly they are not married. Some sources say that Drake and Nicki Minaj took to their micro blogging sites and announced their marriage just for publicity. Drake asked his fans through his micro-blogging site to refer Nicki Minaj as Mrs. Aubrey Drake Graham as she is finally married to him. The Trinidadian American singer also confirmed the news saying that the couple has exchanged vows. However, though the representatives of both the singers have not confirmed anything, Nicki Minaj and Aubrey Drake Graham’s marriage incident has become one of the top searches on web and the fans of both the singers are searching for the authentic news now. I believe that Drake’s personality has been influenced by socio-cultural perspectives and cognitive perspectives.

__**References**__  Gomez, gg. (2010, August 28). //Drake and nicki minaj//. Retrieved from http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/entertainment/drake-and-nicki-minaj-reveal-they-are-a-married-couple-through-twitter_100419702.html

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