Drake has got fans up in arms as he teased his potential retirement from the music industry.
In a video clip released teasing an upcoming podcast, the Canadian rapper said, “…I feel like I’m kind of introducing the concept in my mind of a graceful exit.”
The 36-year-old, best known for hits like ‘Hotline Bling’ and ‘One Dance’, was appearing on the Rap Radar podcast alongside fellow artist Lil Yachty. Fans won’t know if the apparent retirement announcement was taken out of context until the full podcast drops, later today.
Despite his relative youth, Drake has already had a long and very successful career. At the age of 15, in 2001, he joined the cast of Canadian teen drama series ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation’, appearing in 100 episodes up until 2008.
During that time, he was building his musical career, releasing his first mixtape in 2006. In the following 17 years, he’s gone from strength to strength. As of 2022, he’s the highest-certified digital singles artist of all time in the US and his 2018 single ‘God’s Plan’ went 11 times platinum. He also holds numerous Billboard Hot 100 chart records and in 2021, he became only the second artist ever to occupy the entire Hot 100’s top five in a single week. The other act who has held that record is The Beatles.
While many people are doubtful of Drake’s plans to retire, he would hardly be underemployed if he did choose that path.
Born Aubrey Graham in Toronto, he has his own record label and accompanying clothing line OVO, co-owned with his manager Oliver El-Khatib and has acted as an executive producer on a number of TV and film projects, most notably on the Emmy Award winning teen drama ‘Euphoria’.
While we’ll have to wait to see the truth behind the rumour, Drake did say as recently as 2022 that he had no plans to retire from the rap game. In August last year, he was a guest on Nicki Minaj’s ‘Queen Radio’ podcast, and said, “I’m not at that point where I even consider that being an option… One of the best feelings I have in my life is completing a song or project”.
