Drake brings together the GOATs of Canadian hip-hop and duets with Nelly Furtado in historic OVO concert

For Torontonians attending Drake's History Hall on Friday night, OVO - for October's Very Own, the superstar's enduring Canadian brand - might as well have meant Our Very Own.

You could even say that Drake made history with what he dubbed the "All Canadian North Stars", a jaw-dropping assembly of local hip-hop and R&B artists who, as he wrote in his Instagram announcement of the lineup, “paved the way for all of us.”

Some of the artists launched hip-hop in Canada long before the city was called TheSix or even the T-dot. And while it was never mentioned, it was hard not to notice that the night was being filmed, possibly for a documentary.

Drake has single-handedly aided the careers of over 100 Canadian producers, beatmakers, and songwriters by using them on his albums (according to a tally by music publisher Michael McCarty quoting the performing rights organization SOCAN) - the majority of the Greater Toronto Area/Southern Ontario, in fact - and the All Canadian North Stars show was an opportunity for Drizzy to offer flowers to many artists who have helped him along the way.

The three-and-a-half-hour concert, which ended after 2 a.m., kicked off Drake's annual OVO weekend, which usually coincides with the end of Toronto's Caribbean Carnival, which lasts a month. This year he calls it October World Weekend: Road To OVO Fest Tour, as he plans to hold his long-running international OVO Fest in 2023 for the 10th anniversary.

Announced earlier in the week, Friday's bill featured rapper Choclair; Keshia Chanté, R&B artist and Drake's "first girlfriend"; R&B singer Glenn Lewis; R&B group In Essence (and solo Dru); Jully Black, the powerhouse of Canada's "R&B Queen"; Canadian hip-hop ambassador Kardinal Offishall (aka Kardi); singer/rapper k-os; "the godfather of Canadian hip-hop" Maestro Fresh Wes; Vancouver rap group Rascalz; Drake's mentor, Saukrates; R&B-pop singer Shawn Desman; and the only American act, rappers Frank-N-Dank (with major associations in Toronto).

This lineup itself is a who's who, but who else knocked it out of the park, the mystery "+special guests" as it reads on the show's poster , out for their own all-night mini-sets: Grammy-winning pop star Nelly Furtado; “Canada's first lady of hip-hop” Michie Mee; R&B singer Melanie Durrant; and rappers Solitaire (with Kardi), Ro Dolla, Jelleestone and Infinite. Hosting and DJing before the show and keeping the flow between each act was Agile and Kid Kut.

"It's bigger to me than any American act, any show, that I could ever see," Drake said early in the night during a five-minute speech in which he verified the names of people and places integral to the Toronto hip-hop. Several times during the show, Drake said, "That was one of the best nights I've ever had in my life."

"That's the reason the city is the way it is, all these individuals here tonight," Drake continued. "For real. I'm very grateful and I'm very grateful because if I was somewhere else I might have done something completely different, but thanks to each and every one of these individuals who played tonight, I'm where I am. /p>

To put into perspective what some of these artists have accomplished, the barriers they have broken down and what they mean to Canada, here are some of their accomplishments:

Maestro Fresh-Wes was the first Canadian hip-hop artist to have a gold single, 1989's "Let Your Backbone Slide" and the first black artist to receive a platinum album (1989's Symphony In Effect) . Kardi is also a judge on "Canada's Got Talent" and, until recently, was an executive at Universal Music Canada; and Rascalz made history when they refused to accept the Juno Award for Best Rap in 1998 because it was not televised, but asked CARAS to reevaluate and invite them to perform "Northern Touch on the show the following year with The Circle (Rascalz, Kardi, Checkmate, Thrust and Choclair); for the 20th anniversary, the single was remixed and 'The Northern Touch All Stars' hijacked two minutes from the Junos with an impromptu performance, but made a point of mentioning that Canadian rappers 'still struggle to get noticed back home despite the genre's No. 1 popularity.

Tickets for All Canadian North Stars were only $20 (15 USD), a great freebie for such an epic lineup, considering the inflated cost of the Young Money Reunion, which ran into the thousands due to Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing.< /p>

And although the new 35,000-square-foot, 2,553-capacity History—which opened last November in partnership with Live Nation—has permanent metal detectors at the door, security was extremely tight (can -be because of the incident the night before at Dua Lipa's house). Scotiabank Arena concert where someone played...