Lil Wayne Pupil Drake Thrills in NYC

Child-actor-turned-rapper Drake had fans and luminaries like Kanye West enthralled at a small New York show Tuesday, where the as-yet-unsigned artist tried to live up to the buzz.

• “Drake's greatest gift is his ability to translate his love of rap's many styles into his own music,” Chris Ryan writes of the Lil Wayne protégé in the Village Voice. “His stage presence had a degree of effortless charm and showmanship that suggested a real star quality at work.”

• Drake “had the crowd singing along with him from the start,” observes Jayson Rodriguez for MTV. “You would think he had a catalog albums-deep by the way his songs were being chanted.”
• He’s “an extremely adept student, pairing the whimsical, intricate rhymes of Lil Wayne with the melodic gifts and self-flagellation of Kanye West,” notes Jon Caramanica in the New York Times. But while “he dressed the part” last night, “he never fully eased into it.”

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