There’s a chapter in Drake’s work history that was previously unknown. The Toronto rapper is rumored to have worked at Death Row Records before he got famous. 

The rumor came from a report on Genius.com featuring an excerpt of journalist John Seabrook’s The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory book, released last year. “At Death Row Records, Dre’s hip-hop hit factory in L.A., dozens of young beat makers and topliners put in long hours,” the book reads. “The Canadian rapper Drake worked there for a while, before he was famous.”

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But that’s not the whole story. Drizzy didn’t work for Death Row, he worked for Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Records imprint, DJ Booth later confirmed with Seabrook. According to Seabrook, Drake was roughly 19 when he worked as a songwriter for Dre’s label.

From what Drake told Seabrook, he and Noah “40” Shebib moved to L.A. and landed writing gigs. They were paid $10,000, Seabrook says. In the book, Seabrook quotes Drake as calling the job “some of the most strenuous militants s**t” he’s ever done. 

“No usable songs came out of it,” Drake reportedly said. “When I think of how he worked us, it’s no wonder we didn’t get anything out of it. It was just writers in a room churning out products all day long.”  

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Dre founded Aftermath in 1996 after he left Death Row Records. The label's former artists include 50 Cent, Eminem, Eve, Rakim, Raekwon and Kendrick Lamar. 

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