Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

How Much Would You Pay For Drake’s Teenage Poetry Notebook?

The older I get, the more I start to suspect hoarders have been right all along. After all, what if by some turn of events, however unlikely, I should become a multiplatinum Grammy award-winning recording artist whose adolescence is suddenly a source of interest for rich people everywhere? What if my elementary school diary, replete with descriptions of every encounter I had with 10-year-old Jimmy Klinko recounted in painstaking detail, had ended up in the trash somewhere instead of in my parent’s attic, ready to be sold for upwards of $50,000?

If Canadian rapper Drake had thought to ask himself these questions, perhaps his lyric notebook from 2002 would be on sale under his name instead of under the name of a former employee of his grandpa’s furniture factory.

TMZ reports that the notebook, which is filled with handwritten lyrics and several signatures, is currently for sale on MomentsInTime.com. According to the website owner, the notebook was in fact found by a janitor a decade ago at Drake’s grandfather’s Toronto furniture factory. Sensing that this notebook could be his retirement fund, the worker saved it from the trash, waiting for the perfect moment to release it into the ether for some rabid fan with too much money for their own good.

It’s unclear whether Drake condones what amounts to the commoditization of his sacred youth.

Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter, @arr_scott

A message from our CEO & publisher 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 editorial@forward.com, 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.

Exit mobile version