ICEMAN drops May 15. Drake buried the release date inside a 25-foot block of ice in downtown Toronto. Fans showed up with pickaxes. Someone lit part of it on fire. A streamer pulled a bag out of the ice live on camera and there it was.
Twenty years of being one of the biggest artists on the planet and he still knew how to make the room pay attention.
But before the ice sculptures and the OVO empire, there was a 19-year-old from Toronto on a Degrassi set who needed a DJ to say yes. The DJ who said yes was DJ Smallz.
Room for Improvement dropped February 14, 2006. Not on a label. Not through a distributor. Through DJ Smallz and the Southern Smoke series, the same platform that hosted tapes for Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy. That co-sign put Drake's tape in a different conversation than anything Toronto had generated on its own. Six thousand copies moved by hand through local shows and independent outlets. A free digital download circulating through the mixtape circuit. That is the format working exactly the way it was supposed to.
The full story is in the vault now: what the tape sounds like, why the DJ Smallz co-sign mattered more than people remember, and why every stunt in the ICEMAN rollout traces back to the same instinct Drake learned making tapes before anyone knew his name.
From the Crate
"It's a mix CD and I did it with DJ Smallz, who does the Southern Smoke Series. He's done mixtapes with everyone. Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy, a lot of people and he's hosting it for me."
Drake, February 2006. Nineteen years old. Still on Degrassi.
Keep Reaching
They Met in College on Long Island. Now They're on Hot 97.
I went to SUNY Old Westbury. Kast One and Lboogs went to LIU CW Post. Different schools, same Long Island. Back then that meant you ended up at each other's parties. Special events, campus nights, the kind of shows where word traveled fast enough that you would make the drive just to be in the room. That is how I met them.
Episode 3 of the Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast is out now. Kast One tells the full story: growing up on Burnside and Sedgwick Ave in the Bronx with Cedar Park visible from his fire escape, giving away all his records and equipment the day he left for college, ending up as roommates sophomore year with the guy his whole freshman crew was beefing with, and the night DJ Enuff gave him a choice that changed everything.
I knew they were special back then. I did not know yet how important it would turn out to be that our paths crossed. This episode, I am still learning things I did not know.
One More Thing
ICEMAN drops May 15 via OVO Sound and Republic Records. If it debuts at number one, Drake ties Taylor Swift for the most Billboard 200 number ones ever by a solo artist. The kid who sold 6,000 CD-Rs out of Toronto in 2006 is about to set a record that might never be broken.
Room for Improvement started it. Press play on the MTV interview in the full article and hear what he sounded like before the machine took over.
Experience the culture at mixtapekings.com
— Diony C.