TOWSON, Md. — If the strain of high expectations are weighing on Drake, you can’t tell it as he sits in his hotel room, contemplating a future that could make him the biggest new hip-hop star in years. It’s a couple of hours until showtime at Baltimore’s Pier Six Pavilion, but screaming hordes of fans already are packing in for a headline appearance by the rapper whose hotly anticipated debut album isn’t even out yet.

“It’s incredible that it’s come this far,” says Drake, 23, a former Canadian TV actor whose mercurial rise in rap has been unprecedented. “This is really just the next step in my journey. I’ve always been so eager to share my growth with the world.”

There has been plenty of material — mixtapes, leaked tracks, YouTube videos — to whet appetites and spark debates. His MySpace page has attracted more than 31 million visitors. He has shared stages and songs with Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Trey Songz, Mary J. Blige and Kanye West, and his 2009 mixtape, So Far Gone, earned him an unheard-of two Grammy nominations. But it’s more than his credit score that has observers banking on the success of Thank Me Later, which finally hits stores Tuesday.

“There are few artists that can rap and sing and be respected and accepted by both hip-hop and R&B fans,” says Devin Lazerine, editor of the music news site Rap-Up. “The women like him for his sensitive side and his looks, while the guys appreciate his lyrical skills and ability to pick good beats.”

Drake exudes an outward calm, but he’s aware of the burden of being the one— that larger-than-life crossover star who takes rap to another level.

“A lot of people never get past being the underdog to (the point) where you might actually make history,” he says. He shrugs, then adds: “That’s a very hard place to be. The way that I don’t let it overwhelm me is I put it in my music. When I say it on a song, it just feels all right.”

 

Aubrey Drake Graham has been expressing himself through his art for most of his life. He arrived at his new career path with a substantial fan base from eight seasons of portraying a disabled high school basketball star on the popular prime-time teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. (The Canadian show is rebroadcast in the USA on Teen Nick.) Near the end of his 2001-2009 run, Graham’s Jimmy Brooks character became interested in rap, and he began exploring it in real life.

Drake’s dad, Dennis Graham, is a black drummer who played with Jerry Lee Lewis. (Educator mom Sandi, a white Jewish Canadian, raised him in Toronto after the couple divorced.) Other musicians in the family include uncles Teenie Hodges, a Memphis guitarist who played with Al Green, and funk bassist Larry Graham of Sly & the Family Stone and Prince fame.

“I always begged my dad to take me to Beale Street to hear the street musicians,” Drake says. “I dropped out of high school and studied eras that I missed. I started watching flow patterns, asking about bar structure. Just trying to learn as much as I could about this craft I wanted to master.”

Like many rappers, he relied on free mixtapes to get his music out. As Drake (using his middle name to distinguish his rap and acting personas), he attracted a broad range of fans, from kids to smitten women to hardcore hip-hop heads.

In 2008, Jas Prince, son of Rap-A-Lot Records founder J. Prince, gave Lil Wayne some of Drake’s music. Wayne invited the rapper to join his tour.

“I got caught up in this whirlwind that was Tha Carter III right before it exploded,” says Drake, who has put acting on hold. “It seemed like something I wanted so bad. It made me realize I needed a product as exciting as his if I was going to get anywhere.”

He released mixtape So Far Gone in February 2009 as a free download. Singles Best I Ever Had and Successful were underground and radio hits, eventually going top 20 on Billboard‘s Hot 100. He has been featured on hits by Young Money (Every Girl, BedRock), Timbaland (Say Something), Songz (I Invented Sex), Birdman (Money to Blow) and Alicia Keys (Un-Thinkable) that peaked at or near the top of the R&B/hip-hop and rap charts.

After a intense bidding war by the major labels, he signed with Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment/Universal last June and released a So Far Gone EP, which has sold 469,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. He wraps the U.S. leg of his Away From Home tour of college campuses and nearby venues June 19 and will spend July playing Europe and Canada.

The new album is heavy on star power, with appearances by Alicia Keys, T.I., Jay-Z and The Dream.

“I feel good,” Drake says. “I’ve done something I rarely do, which is paid attention to feedback on the Internet, and it’s all been pretty positive.”

The guy who famously declared “Last name ever, first name greatest” (in Forever) is confident he’ll live up to the faith of mentor Lil Wayne, who is serving a year in prison on gun charges.

Three months in, “his spirits are still high,” Drake says. “I can’t wait until he gets out. We have a lot of plans together,” including a joint album. When Drake visited, “he told me how proud he was of me. He’s like, ‘I feel that I created the ultimate artist.’ “

That artist isn’t without skeptics, though.

“People dislike (Drake) for the same reasons others like him,” says Rap-Up‘s Lazerine. “He hustled to get to the top, but not the way most rappers do, so some feel he hasn’t yet earned his place.”

Drake’s rollout sets him apart from other new artists, says Billboard chart analyst Keith Caulfield.

“It’s hard to think of another rapper with this kind of prolific success before his proper album comes out,” Caulfield says. “I don’t know if it is going to be as big as everybody wants it to be. Hopefully, people haven’t hyped him so much that he’s doomed to disappoint.”

He’ll be busy promoting the album in the coming weeks, with a Drake documentary on MTV (June 21) and a performance onThe Tonight Show (June 23). He continues to soak up lessons from the influential figures he calls friends, including NBA players LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, though he says those relationships heighten expectations.

“It’s a blessing, but it’s also scary, because you are seen as part of that circle,” Drake says. “So when your album comes out, people are like, ‘That’s who you hang out with, so it better be as good, if not better than, anything they’ve put out.’

“You want to make them proud. I’ve definitely got to work harder, but I think I’m in a great place.”