Almost Famous

A word after a word after a word is money. For example: “I’m a Young Money millionaire, tougher than Nigerian hair. / My criteria compared to your career just isn’t fair.” That’s a bit of “A Milli,” one of six platinum- and multi-platinum-certified singles by Lil Wayne, the Louisiana rapper who coined the term “bling.” Last summer, Forbes magazine estimated his annual earnings at $18 million (US) — a recession-beating 38 percent rise over the year before. His 2008 album, Tha Carter III, has sold several million copies worldwide; its support tour, a nine-month bus ride bounded by shows in Miami, Montreal, Vancouver, and San Diego, grossed $42 million (US).

At least twice, Barack Obama has counselled children not to emulate Wayne, because it would be easier for them to slam-dunk an anvil than to walk his life path. Lil Wayne won three Grammy Awards last year, cementing his style — sex-and-drug ditties laced with raspy, digitally altered vocals — as one of the most important sounds in the global music industry.

But Lil Wayne, also known as Weezy, is temporarily leaving the rap game. By the time these sentences reach you, he’ll be a month or so into his year on Riker’s Island, the punishment for illegal gun possession. (During a 2007 search of his tour bus, nypd officers found a loaded semi-automatic in a Louis Vuitton bag.) He already looks the stereotypical part of an inmate: his beltline sags below his ass cheeks; heavy dreadlocks droop past his chest; his scores of tattoos include the words “Fear” and “God” on his eyelids. Nevertheless, it will be his first experience of jail.

Weezy’s brand will endure his sabbatical, in large part because he has groomed a protege to take up his mantle. Lil Wayne 2.0 seems like he was designed in a laboratory, so perfectly is he suited to be pop culture’s next superstar. He was born into music, writes and raps like his mentor, dresses up instead of down, and vaguely resembles a young Obama. He is half-black and half-Jewish, media polished, and Hollywood handsome — a vocal gymnast and jet-setter who’s never known hip hop’s “thug life”; the type of gentleman a groupie would bring home to her mother. He’s also Canadian.

Before he picked up and slammed that anvil, Toronto’s Aubrey Graham was a television heartthrob. From 2001 through last year, he played basketball hero Jimmy Brooks on CTV’s Degrassi: The Next Generation. In the series, a cornball hit with young viewers above and below the forty-ninth parallel, Jimmy was shot and paralyzed from the waist down. The character became a rapper, reflecting the actor’s life. The work paid well enough for Aubrey to lease (but not purchase) a Rolls-Royce Phantom, an ultra-luxury more suited to the celebrity he had not yet become.

Aubrey had been making music using his middle name — “d-r-a-k-e, that’s me” — although nowadays he’s also known as Drizzy (a hat tip to Wayne). Four years ago, working nights after Degrassi, he recorded his first mix tape (a cassette-length playlist of unlicensed songs) with Florida’s DJ Smallz, then released it on the Internet as a free download. Drake’s support team, a trio of his friends that includes music producer Noah “40” Shebib (a fellow former child actor), sold hard copies of the tape, Room for Improvement, themselves, pushing 6,000 units based on word of mouth.

A second free tape, 2008’s Comeback Season, caught Lil Wayne’s ear. At his request, Drake went to Houston for a weekend of work and play. At some point, the MCs stepped to a microphone and jumped on a beat by Just Blaze, one of hip hop’s premier producers. Drake went first, and impressed Weezy well enough (“Count my own money, see the paper-cut fingers, / My song is your girlfriend’s wakin’-up ringer”) to spark the beginning of a beautiful business relationship. He joined Wayne’s independent empire, Cash Money Records, and soon became the standout member of Young Money, its stable of developing artists.

Last year’s So Far Gone, Drake’s third freebie, powered by smart, nimble songs like “Best I Ever Had,” “Successful,” and “The Calm,” pushed his ascent to near vertical. This giveaway strategy is standard fare for emerging MCs in Internet-era hip hop: there’s little to no cost of distribution, and copyright holders rarely chase royalties for uncleared samples. Breakout hits like So Far Gone are extraordinary, but even they basically act as loss leaders for traditional for-profit studio releases.

In the summer, there was a seven-digit bidding war, brokered by Cash Money, to secure Drake’s signature on a recording contract; Universal Motown Republic Group won, at a rumoured price of $2 million (US). Over the following months, it proved a worthwhile investment. In September, a shortened version of So Far Gone debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 chart, and has since sold close to 400,000 North American copies, despite the full tape being available online. “The Best I Ever Had,” released as his first commercial single, peaked at number two on the Billboard charts, then received a pair of Grammy nominations.

Incredibly, all this activity has preceded the release of Drake’s official debut album. Thank Me Later comes out this spring, featuring guest vocals by Jay-Z and productions from Kanye West (the Elvis Presley and Brian Wilson, respectively, of the past decade’s sales charts), and fellow Torontonians 40 and Matthew “Boi-1da” Samuels, a Jamaica-to-Toronto immigrant. With guidance from Wayne, Drake is getting famous on his own terms, in a way that could never have happened in the pre-broadband age. If his plan holds steady — so far it’s been so good — by this October, when he celebrates his twenty-fourth birthday, he will have become this country’s most successful urban music export since...well, ever.

A word after a word after a word is music. The godmother of Canadian rap is Michie Mee, a Toronto high school student when she cut her first single, 1987’s “Elements of Style,” with New York’s mighty Boogie Down Productions. The following year, she signed with First Priority records in New York, becoming the first Canadian MC to join hip hop’s big leagues. Her debut album with DJ L.A. Luv, the dance hall–flavoured Jamaican Funk: Canadian Style, was Juno Award nominated in Canada — and virtually dead on arrival at stateside retail.

“With me doing the reggae stuff, some of it was like another language [to American listeners],” Michie told me in a 2005 interview. She was dropped by First Priority but kept grinding south of the border as a live performer — usually the opening act, rarely the headliner. She turned to acting in the late ’90s, playing (what else?) a rapper on CBC-TV’s Drop the Beat.

Today, if you approach a thirty-something Canadian and shout, “This is a throwdown, a showdown, hell no, I can’t slow down!” he or she will probably advise you to let your backbone slide. Such is the legacy of Michie’s male counterpart, Maestro Fresh Wes. After striking gold here in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Wes moved south to New York — hip hop’s birthplace and ultimate proving ground. There, he was swallowed alive.