Drake Is Now Officially a College Course and We Have Thoughts

Let's be real — if any rapper was going to end up on a university syllabus, it was always going to be Drake.

According to reporting from XXL Mag, a college course in Canada is set to examine Drake's career in an academic setting. No further details on the curriculum have been widely confirmed yet, but the concept alone is sending the internet into full debate mode — and we're here for every second of it.

The Man, The Myth, The Midterm

Think about what that course load actually looks like. Week one: the Degrassi-to-rap-god pipeline. Week three: the OVO Sound business model and what it means to build a label empire. Week seven: we're deep in the Certified Lover Boy rollout, analyzing balloon emojis as cultural signifiers. Finals week? A 10-page paper on whether "God's Plan" was charity or marketing genius — and the correct answer is both.

This isn't as wild as it sounds, either. Hip-hop academia has been growing for years. Jay-Z's Decoded has been assigned reading in college courses. Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly has been dissected in music theory classes. Drake's body of work — spanning nearly two decades, multiple genre pivots, and a cultural footprint that stretches from Toronto to Dubai — is absolutely worthy of serious scholarly attention.

Toronto's Biggest Export Gets His Flowers in a Classroom

What makes Drake's career genuinely interesting from an academic standpoint isn't just the numbers — though 50 billion streams and counting is a pretty compelling thesis statement. It's the how. How did a kid from Forest Hill become the architect of an entire sonic era? How did he reshape what vulnerability looks like in rap? How did he turn beef into content and content into legend?

And yes, the Kendrick chapter is going to be very awkward to grade objectively.

Reports suggest the course is based in Canada, which tracks — Drake is arguably the country's most influential cultural export since, well, ever. Putting him in an academic context isn't just a flex for Canadian institutions; it's a recognition that popular music shapes society in ways that deserve real critical examination.

The Bigger Picture

Hip-hop in the classroom is no longer a novelty. It's a reflection of where the culture sits in the broader conversation about art, commerce, identity, and influence. Drake — love him or have strong feelings about him — sits at the intersection of all of those things.

So whether you're a fan, a critic, or somewhere in between, you have to respect the fact that the work is being taken seriously enough to study.

Now if someone could just confirm whether the final exam includes a listening session for Take Care in its entirety, we'd appreciate the update.

Editor's note: Written in response to reporting by XXL Mag. Read the original at https://www.xxlmag.com/drake-college-course-canada/