Legends are not made through performance alone. It takes a certain level of intellect, matched with intentional industry navigation. Using those internal tools as the catalyst for anyone’s name to be written in stone as one of the greatest. Taking a page out of his mentors book, Drake has been moving in silence like the g in lasagna for a decade. Seamlessly stacking the building blocks to his empire, transitioning from young rich and famous to a walking enterprise. The OVO collective has masterfully created longevity along with brand equity through the music, apparel, sports, and spirits industries. All while embedding the brand into the economic fabric of Toronto. Most entertainers are playing checkers with a few hit songs or shows, brand sponsorships, and celebrity relationships in attempts to stay visible. However, a true master of life knows that the game is about playing chess, not checkers. The 6 God is playing the long game, carefully moving each element of his brand across the chessboard of affluence.
What we’ve seen in Drake is a mastery of real-time culture shaping. From visuals, to social media leverage, to deal structures. He is a rap futurist who has always understood where the industry is headed, effectively molding himself into the image of what success will look like years before the public perceives it. He’s the ruler over all that he surveys, because he understands his unique opportunity to re-write the rules to rap in real-time. Some hate it, some love it, but Drake has been lapping the competition because of the it factor. If you ain’t got it, you ain’t got it. The theory is brilliant.
Build The Reputation & Become A Necessity
A long-standing house can’t be built without a firm foundation. Drake had no intention of merely building a house, he was thinking more along the lines of a multifaceted compound when he burst onto the scene in 2009. His winning combination of camera-readiness, emotive lyrics, and genre blending approach to music captured the hearts of fans worldwide. Reminiscent of the old Kanye in 2004, Drake redefined the image and sound of mainstream rap, spearheading an entire era of Hip-Hop. A less visionary person wouldn’t have been unable to identify such a sweet spot, but Drake knew he was standing at the helm of a generational shift.
“Listen to you expressing all those feelings. Soap opera rappers, all these n*ggas sound like All My Children.” – Drake, Headlines
Artists on their last leg were rushing to him for features, while growing stars from his own draft class were begging for a no-look pass from Drizzy. By 2012, he had two platinum albums, and the record for most number 1 rap songs on Billboard. All while the rap game embraced melody, self-reflection, and sensitivity seeking to mimic the wonder boy’s blueprint.
“The part I love most is they need me more than they hate me. So they never take shots, I got everybody on safety.” – Drake, 5am In Toronto
When you have the game in a choke hold, you tighten your grip so no one can breathe without you. Only fools get comfortable though. When the time is right you must move on from the need to make a name for yourself, and take ownership of being the hand that feeds. Once you’re identified as an opportunity creator, your colleagues and counterparts will bend to your will.
Intentional Positioning
Winning is subjective, and completely depends on what victory looks like to the achiever. Some people define success as being able to make a consistent income doing what they love. Others find success in having a certain degree of notoriety, or even fame. Of course, there are some who look for more. You know who you are, the folks who find accomplishment in high levels of power and influence. Money is great, and notoriety strokes the ego just right, but the combination of both with respect on the side offers true power. Power is a tool reserved for a select few with an otherworldly comprehension of intentional positioning.
Monumental success stems from an ability to identify coming trends, and adjust your approach accordingly. One can find prime examples of this practice throughout Drake’s career. He has consistently placed himself at the right place at the right time, while staying out from underneath anyone’s shadow. This way, he’s been able to carve a place in history as a cultural paragon instead of merely being part of someone else’s movement. Once his star power was big enough, he respectfully created distance between himself and the Young Money imprint.
“Plus I never met nobody from my label n*gga, I just pop up with the music then they pay a n*gga.” – Drake, Sneakin
The creator holds the value. For years we’ve been taught to depend on the institutions who pay us to create. In all actuality, they need us. That content platform you work for doesn’t get those ad-dollars without your creations bringing in the page views. That marketing agency you work for doesn’t acquire new clients without case studies stemming from successful campaigns you put together. These record labels don’t see a dime without the artists they sign. We are in the era of retaining ownership. Our generation is grasping the concept that we are the real asset, and we carry ourselves as walking businesses. Minus his loyalty to Wayne and Baby, Drake never saw the labels he was signed to as anything more than the institutions he drove profit for. He wanted his coins for doing such, and to rinse and repeat the process until he built enough value to become a partner. In other words, he strived for equity, not employment.
In 2012, the newly founded OVO Sound imprint forged a distribution deal through Warner Brothers. The label roster boasted PARTYNEXTDOOR, dvsn, Majid Jordan and Roy Woods who each built their own fair deal of traction. By 2015, OVO had extended its partnership with Warner Bros. True to form, the details of the partnership are cloudy adding to the mystique that is OVO. Meanwhile, Drake carefully built validity behind his cosign by supplying verses to the new wave of artists coming after him. Say what you want, but a Drake feature has become one of the most coveted acquisitions in Hip-Hop. We need not revisit the list of Drake stimulus package beneficiaries, but unless you’re a proud hater you know that a handful of today’s biggest stars were catapulted to fame thanks to a Drake verse. He’s even helped entire genres break into the U.S. market like Grime and Afrobeat.
“I used to want to be on Roc-a-fella, then I turned into Jay.” – Drake, Summer 16
Perhaps most importantly, Drake made sure to never little bro himself by rushing to dawn a Roc-a-fella chain or take pictures with Jay-Z every chance he could. A few guest verses from the Mike Jordan of recording were necessary to position Drake as a possible heir to the throne, but to be a true leader you’ve got to plant your own flag. That’s the only way for civilians and fellow leaders to respect the presence of your kingdom. Dynasties are built by visionaries who possess the type of foresight that keeps them ahead of the curve. Beyond that, ever-lasting influence is held by those who understand that they must move in the interest of preserving respect. Honor your mentors, but don’t ride their coattails forever. Pay homage to the legends who paved the way for your greatness, but never subject yourself to peon status by clinging to their endorsement. Be the stamp, not the stamped.
The throne has been held by the great Hova for most of our adolescent and adult lives. It seems almost uncomfortable to give someone else that title, but Drake is very well taking the reins as the greatest of all time if we’re talking about a complete package of artistry. He blends genres and categories of entertainment with a Jaimie Foxx like ease, unlike anything we’ve ever seen from a rapper. Commercially, he’s the face of rap. He’s a discussion starter, and your hard pressed to go to any function without hearing Drake. When it comes to rap on a pure level of dominance and accomplishment, no one else in the league has outdone his performance in the last 10 years.
When the great debate of MJ vs LeBron James ensues, it almost perfectly matches the Drake and Jay-Z debate. Fans claim that LeBron couldn’t have achieved the same impact during MJ’s era. Folks quickly make note of LeBron’s head start because of going into the league at a younger age. They go on about how MJ’s contribution to the game propelled basketball’s crossover into pop cultural appeal like no player before him. Still the stats between the two are slowly but surely tilting in LeBron’s favor. Both players may have made an incredible impression on their sport, but the new normal is upon us and by today’s standards LeBron is introducing a new tier of athleticism and performance that basketball has never seen. What’s legendary? Raising the bar for what excellence looks like.
The Art of Exposure
Number 6 of the 48 Laws of Power mandates that you must court attention at all costs. October’s Very Own made this one of his chess moves early on. He was already a household name, but true dominance required him to become more than a hit maker. Through strategic endorsements and sponsorships, Drake grew from a musical superstar to a staple in pop culture.
“I avoided the coke game, and went with Sprite instead.” – Drake, The Resistance
What better way to seep into the hearts and minds of fans worldwide, than by gaining a key endorsement from a brand recognized across international waters? Drake’s team took the imperative next step in the chess game of business by amplifying his star power through the Sprite “Spark” Campaign. Plenty of superstars have earned endorsement deals way before Drake even wrote his first bars, but what’s special about his first endorsement is that it was done with vigilant intent. The Spark Campaign was Sprite’s first world-wide marketing push. By Drake being the face of the campaign, he became synonymous with the brand’s worldwide exposure, adding value to his co-sign.
“Shout goes out to Nike, checks all over me, I need a FuelBand just to see how long the run has been” – Drake, 10 Bands
Chess is about surveying the game, understanding when it’s time to move, and knowing exactly where to make that move. Drake isn’t known for his fashion sense, and he’s most certainly not known to be a designer. However, applying pressure requires venturing into otherwise unfamiliar territory, especially when the profit margins are undeniable. Just four years after Drake was introduced to the world, the U.S. sneaker market jumped 47% in sales. In 2013 alone Adidas, Nike and Under Armour’s footwear sales reached over $25 billion.
That same year, Nike hit a new level of cultural relevance thanks to Kanye West’s involvement, but was in the midst of a headline grabbing divorce with Yeezy. October’s Very Own geniusly identified a key opportunity to jump in the mix and align the brand to a billion dollar sneaker culture. Drake and OVO inked an endorsement deal in 2013 reportedly worth $10 million dollars, resulting in the design and release of several OVO x Jordan Brand sneakers to market. Millennials are Drake’s target demographic, and by 2015 that population drove the sneaker market by spending $21 billion on footwear, according to the Washington Post. The empire of Drake successfully pinpointed the right time to insert itself into the conversation and monumental growth period of the footwear industry. Driven by the same demographic that was fueling his success. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s what we call careful calculation.
I got me a deal with Apple and I still feel entitled – Drake, Charged Up
The details are foggy, but in 2015 as the streaming wars were just heating up, Drake inked a reported $19 million dollar partnership with Apple. Perception makes way for reality, and his team placed him at the forefront of the streaming business. This was achieved by having Drake take the stage as a spokesman at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference when the company unveiled Apple Music. The entire world equated Drake with the streaming revolution because of that move. It was followed up with the OVO radio station on Apple, and an exclusive release of his most highly anticipated album Views, which sold 632,000 copies during its first 24 hours of availability, according to The Wall Street Journal. The album sold 1 million copies within 5 days, and Apple Music users streamed the project over 250 million times.
By 2016, a year after becoming Spotify’s most streamed artist of the year, Drake eclipsed Eminem for the most weeks at number 1 with Views. He also beat out Queen Bey for the most streamed album of the year. The music industry business model was reshaping due to the streaming revolution, and again Drake was at the forefront of the shift. In 2017, Toronto’s golden child had already become the most streamed artist in the world for the calendar year by leveraging the two leading streaming services. Call it foresight, but Drake had already gotten in the habit of super-long track listings in favor of streaming numbers. Take Care had 20 tracks. Nothing Was The Same had 15 tracks. If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late had 17 tracks. More Life listed 22 tracks, and Views came in with 20 tracks. That means for 6 years Drake was already ahead of the streaming curve, acknowledging that the more songs an album had the more streams it would bring in. Eventually meaning sales numbers, plaques, and dominance by sheer metrics. According to Rolling Stone, in 2018 the duration of the top five streamed albums rose almost 10 minutes over the past five years, to an average of 60 minutes.
Album certifications are still the mark of a successful artist. Plaques and sales numbers are the tools used to argue an artist’s relevancy, and deservance of partnerships in a time when equity is the new standard. Peeping the trend early, Drake spiked the number of tracks per album, simultaneously challenging himself musically by making longer albums with no skip value. Whether or not he achieved the latter depends on who you’re asking, but the fact still remains that Drake made a major chess move by peeping the coming paradigm shift and building a portfolio that fit the new standards of success to come.
Diversify Your Portfolio
Drake has created the new standard of success for rap artists, by embodying the multi-disciplinary creative, birthed from an internet culture. He’s checked all the boxes when it comes to record sales. His star power and artistic influence reaches beyond rap as it approaches icon status like that of Beyonce. He’ll give you bars to leave you with the screwface, help Queen Bey herself pen a hit, and then perform amongst Hollywood’s best in SNL skits. It’s just different. A million self help books will tell you that the jack of all trades is a master of none, ignore that. You can totally master your core money-making ability, and put your eggs in plenty more baskets when the timing is right. While Drake has mastered the hell out of music, he’s for damn sure mastered the art of filtering his star power into sports and television.
He expanded his reach by proving that he’s the type of star whose revenue stream and excellence doesn’t fit in a box. In 2014, he hosted and performed on SNL for the first time. Reminding us all that Hollywood is only one good script away. That year he also hosted the ESPY”s to rave revues about his comedic timing and showmanship.
The program grabbed the attention of over 2.5 billion viewers, pulling in a broadcast rating 9.6% higher than the previous year according to ESPN. In 2016, he hosted SNL yet again, and it only made sense for the NBA to recruit Drizzy to host the first ever NBA Awards in 2017, which in turn saw 1.79 million viewers on TNT Monday night, 2% higher than the league’s average viewership on TNT. The key to increasing your personal reach and value, is to show that your influence will drive the numbers up regardless of the industry you choose to participate in. The last time we saw Drake do anything with a basketball was when he was Jimmy, and yet he’s helping major sports leagues and television channels see more engagement than their regular programming. Lord knows, he’s heavy he got his weight up.
“Fuck all that rap-to-pay-your-bill shit / I’m on some Raptors-pay-my-bills shit” – Drake, 0-100
Part of the rap royalty recipe is to get involved with your hometown sports team, and in 2013 Drake was announced as the Global Ambassador for the Raptors. It was surely a smart move on the team’s part to attach their brand to a global superstar. Being guilty by association indeed applies to the Raptors absorbing the pop cultural equity that comes with Drake wherever he goes. The partnership increased in 2016 with a $3 million dollar pledge to improve basketball courts in local Toronto communities, as well as to develop the sport from grassroots to professional play the city. The ribbon on top is that OVO is threaded into the franchise with OVO-edition uniforms and an OVO-designed black and gold home court.
Create Equity, Economic Dependency, and Keep it in the Family
Virginia Black, I could go make enough money off that and not even rap – Drake, Gyalchester
Now, Drake has his eyes on the spirits industry. Through co-founding Virginia Black whiskey with Brent Hawking (Deleon Tequila) he will tap into the $3.1 billion dollar American whiskey market. While boosting Toronto’s economy by driving hotel bookings, restaurant revenue, and tourism traffic through the OVO Festival. Perhaps the most brilliant move was OVO introducing an annual festival. Lasting forever means becoming an undeniable resource to the spaces you frequent. Just two years ago the Toronto Star reported that the economic impact of The OVO Festival could be $5 million on the low end and up to $20 million in new money. Imagine what that number is looking like now. Andrew Weir, executive vice-president and chief marketing officer at Tourism Toronto, said the city is on track to set a tourism record this year, thanks in part to Drake.
“I’m managed by my friends that I grew up with / I’d rather give that 15% to people I f–k with” – 6pm In New York
When it comes down to it, you absolutely must keep the money circulating within the family. Those who helped you build when you had nothing, and kept you grounded in the midst of success you only dreamed of. Since the beginning it’s been Drake, 40, O, and Neeks, standing in a huddle. Let’s not forget Chubbs, Future the Prince, and other members of the crew who keep the machine functioning while Drake plays the front.
A wise man from Marcy once said “Till you own your own, you can’t be free”. There are levels to ownership and economic freedom but the sentiment is true. Drake’s model for success gave him equity in his music. The partnerships his team forged, lined his pockets while expanding his cultural equity through exposure and access. All things considered, Drake and OVO are poised to create cultural relevance, economic impact, and generational wealth that will last lifetimes. Look around at your squad, and remember that everyone needs to play their position with pride. You’ll lose some and win some, long as the outcome is income.