Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Israel News

The New (Jewish) Face of Rap

Music writer Jon Caramanica said it right in the New York Times on June 8: “Biracial Jewish-Canadian former child actors don’t have a track record of success in the American rap industry.”

But Drake (born Aubrey Drake Graham), a 23-year-old half-black, half-Jewish gifted rapper from suburban Toronto, is proving Caramanica and us wrong. The rap star, whose debut album, “Thank Me Later,” debuted June 15, has already made big waves in the hip-hop community and has built a strong fan base. In fact, a free show scheduled for the same day in Manhattan was canceled after thousands of fans showed up and a melee erupted.

Drake, who was raised by his Jewish mother in Toronto, attended a Jewish day school and celebrated his bar mitzvah. “I went to a Jewish school, where nobody understood what it was like to be black and Jewish,” he said in a June interview in Heeb magazine.

But Drake left the Jewish suburb of Forest Hills and his Jewish school after getting his start at 14 on the Canadian Television Network teen drama “Degrassi: The Next Generation” as Jimmy Brooks, a wheelchair-bound basketball player. While filming the show, he recorded two amateur mixtapes on the side and, in 2008, hip-hop star Lil Wayne invited him to join his tour. The two collaborated while traveling, which led to Drake’s third mixtape, “So Far Gone.”

The title song, with the promotional help of Lil Wayne, reached the No. 2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and garnered Drake two Grammy nominations in 2010, making him the first rapper to be nominated without producting an album.

Drake’s music has been singled out for his thoughtful, personal lyrics and his undeniable vocal talent, and it has given him the opportunity to collaborate with rappers like Eminem and Jay Z, and even with indie rock artists like Peter Bjorn and John.

And despite his stardom in a music genre that is rarely linked to Jews, Drake has continued to self-identify as Jewish. A December 2009 Vibe magazine cover showed him wearing a diamond studded chai necklace.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.