Canadian-born actor, producer, and rap superstar, Drake, is one of the most globally recognized artists these days. He was raised almost singlehandedly by his Jewish Canadian mother in Toronto.
Drake is Jewish. He attended a Jewish day school when he was growing up and celebrated one of the most hallowed rites of passage of Jewish boys, a Bar Mitzvah.
Drake is proud of his Jewish heritage and speaks often about his connection to the community. He celebrated his 31st birthday in 2017 by throwing himself a “re-Bar Mitzvah”.
Beginnings
Drake was born Aubrey Drake Graham in Toronto, Ontario to parents Dennis, a Catholic drummer, and Sandra, an Ashkenazi Jewish Canadian who was an English teacher.
By the time he was five years old in 1991, his parents were divorced and his father moved back to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee in the US.
As a consequence, Drake’s relationship with his father in his early years was limited to spending summers in Memphis until his father went to jail for some time.
Drake’s beloved mother, affectionately called Sandi, became the only person responsible for his care.
Religious Affiliation
With Drake’s mother’s Jewish influence and following the departure of his father, Drake attended a Jewish day school prior to his high school career.
When he came of age at 13 years old, he also celebrated a Bar Mitzvah. Of the religious ceremony, Drake said in an interview with MTV that his mother didn’t have a lot of money so they held the ceremony in the basement of an Italian restaurant, “a faux pas onto itself”.
Drake has said that he is a proud Jewish boy. He had issues with this identity when he attended high school at the Forest Hill Collegiate Institute.
Although the school was largely Jewish and he excelled in his studies and developed a love for art, he was bullied for his religious affiliation as well as for his bi-racial ethnicity.
This resulted in Drake leaving school before finishing, but he later re-enrolled and graduated in 2012.
Religious Identity
Throughout his career, Drake has exceeded the accomplishments of other artists in his generation.
His record sales, chart-topping hits and multiple award winnings has put him in similar categories with The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Whitney Houston.
He is an unlikely Jewish superstar in a world that still does not know what to do with a Jewish rapper. Drake has not been the first; he was compared to the Beastie Boys by Rolling Stone in 2014 as “the best Jewish rapper since the Beastie Boys”.
For Drake, being a black Jewish rapper is an identity onto itself, one which is not something really popular in the world at the moment.
He spoke about his experiences with such a title in an interview with CBC in 2013.
Religious Practice
Drake does not promote himself as a Jewish rapper although he is not hiding his beliefs. He finds more of his identity in his style of rap and his looks.
He posts on his Instagram page about celebrating traditional Jewish holidays and customs with his family and threw himself a re-Barmitzvah for his 31st birthday.
In 2015 when Drake opened a nightclub at the Air Canada Centre, he dedicated the opening to his late Jewish grandparents and named the establishment “Sher Club” after them.
Drake’s Jewish religion has also featured in his art. In a segment on SNL that he hosted, he famously parodied his bar mitzvah and poked fun at his upbringing with a black father and Jewish mother.
Drake is also exceptionally close to his mother, and he has many songs mentioning Sandi as the most important person in his life.
This is typical of any nice Jewish boy.