I remember when this happened vividly, it was 2009, and I had barely heard any of Drakes music, he had a verse on Jeezy 'Trappin Ain't Dead' at the time, and I think I may had heard a handful of his tracks with Wayne, but I wasn't impressed.....I knew he was an actor, and basically I knew his background, or enough to know, I wasn't fukking with him. And his bars were suburb rap right from the start, and I didn't feel it. But, he was gaining traction, friends of mine today tell me I put them onto Drake cuz they heard that Jeezy tape at my house, and I told them this dude was supposed to be the next one up.
Then I saw this video, everyone said the same things we are saying now, but I don't think his peers cared to comment, which shows the kind of 'corporate cronyism' that has infected the game....You know some of these guys who really came up in the game, from the street, don't respect him. But, they went along. They did the features. They maybe even came around to him. To sum all this up, I remember playing this video for a friend, who is like a barometer of the average fan.....mostly uninformed, heavy in the club scene, always with the trends.....and he was like 'Yeah Drake is a fukking nerd.....but the music is dope' and that was it. Personally, the music was not dope at the time, and I didn't come around for years, til like 'Take Care', and I recognize his talent or his lane.....but I even find myself skipping many of his tracks now, when they come up.
Like
@Walt has said, he is the Manchurian Candidate, the curtain just fell a little here.