DrakeFor a 23-year-old rapper with no official album to his name, the buzz on Drake (real name: Aubrey Graham) is deafening. When the emcee releases 'Thank Me Later,' his oft-delayed, long-awaited debut album on Universal Motown, which features Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Alicia Keys and Young Jeezy, on June 15, it'll be less an opening salvo and career initiation than a culmination of four years of underground hustle and increasing chatter.

To many who have followed his career since his days as Jimmy, the wheelchair-bound student on 'Degrassi: The Next Generation,' or even since his first mixtape surfaced in 2006, Drake is already a superstar. The son of a black Tennessean father and white Canadian mother, the rapper was raised in Toronto and began acting in high school, eventually playing the role of Jimmy on 'Degrassi' for eight years, beginning in 2001.