Drake Reflects On Making The Internet Go Nuts, “It Was All A First”

Written By S. Samuel

Young Money's Drake has reflected on his career and how the power of an online format eventually landed him number one his, a platinum-selling album and Grammy nominations.

Drake
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From Drizzy’s eyes, he had no idea just how powerful the Internet when searching for a way to break into the music industry.

“Initially, I think I just didn’t know what would happen,” Drake recalls. “I was this rapper with a little bit of buzz, the internet was taking over, and I didn’t know the power of the internet at that point. The true power of social networking and the things we are so emmersed in now. There wasn’t an artist that had been 100% birthed from that outlet and I think to be discovered on MySpace, how I was found, and for it to somehow reach Wayne‘s ears and for him to feel so confident about it and call me and to release a mixtape on the internet again and have a record somehow go #1 off a mixtape using the internet as a tool. It was all amazing because it was all a first, I can’t remember that happening in my day. Even if you think of 50 [Cent], [Kanye West], and [Young] Jeezy, I remember having hard copies of all of those tapes. I remember it being more about the radio.” (Global Grind)

Drake’s ability to mesh mixtapes with the Internet also amazed him.

“So I had my #1 hit off of a mixtape which was unheard of and now, I look at Deuces, a Grammy nominated record off of a Mixtape, that was on the internet, that’s happening now, consistently. It’s crazy for all of that to translate to an amazing career and accolades, but it’s crazy for that to reach as far as the Grammy’s. I don’t know how to put it any other way. It’s really from 40s apartment to the internet to the Grammy awards. That’s the chain of events as far as my music making. I still record at 40’s apartment, I’m in Torono right now recording in his apartment. From 40’s apartment to some mastering studio to the radio to the world on the internet to the Grammy Awards. It’s mind-blowing. That’s the journey I can explain.” (Global Grind)

Earlier this year, Chicago rapper Rhymefest talked to SOHH about negative bloggers’ critiques of his music.

“If five people think you’re sh*t, then not only will it bring you down a few notches, it will affect the art that you’re trying to create,” Rhymefest told SOHH. “Because it’ll make it so that you’re stuck, so then you can’t create freely because you’re thinking about what those five people said and not even what the fifty people said about how they loved it. And I sat and thought in the studio for four hours, ‘Why does my existence disgust this person, what is it about the way God made me that disgusts another individual?’ It took me four hours to snap out of it to say what the f*ck am I doing? This dude is probably 11 years old, it could be anything. And then what I noticed is a lot of people that write that sh*t, if you give them attention like, ‘So what songs don’t you like?’ dude, these same people be like, ‘Oh my God, he talked to me. I love your sh*t!’ You figure out, all this person wanted was for someone to recognize them. Where I’m with it now, I’m a f*cking star dude. Like, I’m popular — people want to knock you off whatever it is….artists have to keep looking straight.” (SOHH)

Another fan of the Internet, Freeway, previously discussed the benefits of earning a strong online presence.

“When I was doing the whole month of madness — I would read the comments and I would respond to comments on some of the joints people would be saying this and that and I would respond,” Freeway explained in an interview. “But when I first, like, two years ago when I really first started dropping joints on the net, like, people wasn’t f*cking with me. N*ggas was like, ‘Ah, get the f*ck outta here,’ but once I started building up the substance and material and people were seeing that the material was good, slowly but surely they started f*cking with it. The comments used to make me mad but when they be hating, they’re Internet thugs so I ain’t worried about that.” (Vlad TV)

Check out some recent Drake footage down below:

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Written by S. Samuel

Steven Samuel is the co-founder of SOHH.com.

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