“Maybe I’m still stoned, maybe I’m in a coma. And it’s just, like, I’m playing my ideal life,” the rapper said as he reflected on his life and possible trajectories.
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Drake as Jimmy in “Degrassi: The Next Generation”
Drake looks back on his Degrassi beginnings.
The rapper, who got his start as a teenager playing Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi: the next generationrevealed in a voice memo on Instagram on Wednesday that he “got stoned” just before his audition for the Canadian teen drama series.
“Someone asked me the other night what my biggest fear was, and I never really got a good answer, but my answer was that it was all for naught,” he said. he started in the video message. “The idea that one day life ends and everything goes black.”
Drake, 36, said the question sent him into a “deep thought spiral” about “surreal” life, which then prompted him to think back to his early career.
“I go back to that day when I was 13 or 14. I auditioned for a TV show that ultimately shaped my life,” he explained, referring to Degrassi. “Before my audition, I went to this kid. And I, through, I guess, a desire to be accepted, would succumb to peer pressure, and I got high with these kids right before my audition.
The four-time Grammy Award winner admitted he sometimes wonders if his life would have turned out differently if ‘something bad’ had happened that day, and if his life and all his professional successes hadn’t been actually just a figment of his imagination.
Related: Started From Below: Seeing Drake Reunite With His “Degrassi” Teammates
“You know, maybe I’m still stoned, maybe I’m in a coma. And it’s just, like, me playing out my ideal life,” he reflected. “That concept stuck with me for many years.”
He added that his life “feels like reality, it feels tangible” to him, but admitted: “I really wonder sometimes.”
Prior to his blossoming music career, Drake starred in Degrassi from 2001 to 2009 as Jimmy, a basketball player whose life changes forever when a classmate shoots him and leaves him paralyzed from the waist down.
The series, which ran for 14 seasons from 2001 to 2015, focused on students at Degrassi Community School as they struggle with relationship issues, friendship fights, turmoil, addictions to drugs and alcohol, gambling problems, pregnancy fears and more.
On the same subject: Everything you need! Drake stages the epic "Degrassi: The Next Generation" Reunion in ‘I’m Upset’ Video
In 2018, the Take care of yourself the artist paid tribute to his Degrassi days by turning the music video for his song “I’m Upset” into a The next generation meeting.
In the music video, Drake and his former bandmates – including Shane Kippel (Spinner), Miriam MacDonald (Emma), Lauren Collins (Paige), Cassie Steele (Manny) and Nina Dobrev (Mia), among others – walked through the school halls for their class of 2007 reunion. Ephraim Ellis, who played Rick, the student who shot Jimmy, also made an appearance.
The video ended with the show’s catchy theme song, including new shots of the cast stitched together with stock footage from the original show.
Drake also referenced Degrassi in 2021 when he reacted to Steele’s TikTok “Buss It” challenge, in which she recreated it Degrassi the character’s signature blue thong look. Drake commented, “Fit is a museum worthy of Santos.”
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Degrassi: the next generation can be streamed on Max.
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