--- title: Drake Early Career description: Nelly Furtado revealed that before Drake was the 6 god, he was a background vocalist for an opening act on her 'Loose' tour. canonical: https://time.com/4714948/drake-early-career/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-28T15:54:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:42:18.054Z og:title: Drake Was Once a Background Singer on Nelly Furtado's Tour og:description: Here's what Drizzy was doing before he was the 6 god og:url: https://time.com/4714948/drake-early-career/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Drake Was Once a Background Singer on Nelly Furtado's Tour twitter:description: Here's what Drizzy was doing before he was the 6 god twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Apparently, Drake Was a Background Singer on Nelly Furtado's Tour  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Mar 28, 2017 3:54 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Mar 28, 2017 3:54 PM UTC Before [Aubrey Drake Graham](http://time.com/4707007/drake-j-lo-drunk-texts/) was universally acknowledged as [the 6 god](http://time.com/4570131/drake-sneakin-video/), apparently he used his talents to support a fellow Toronto artist: [Nelly Furtado](http://time.com/4609263/celebrities-on-donald-trump-inauguration-performance/). In an interview with [_Nylon_](http://www.nylon.com/articles/nelly-furtado-nylon-march-2017)_,_ Furtado revealed that Toronto’s self-appointed ambassador was once a background vocalist on her _Loose_ tour. During a lively discussion of Furtado’s 20-plus years representing Toronto’s urban music scene, the interviewer jokes that Drake should know that “Nelly did it first,” which leads to Furtado sharing her own Drizzy anecdote. “Drake knows,” she said, referring to the Toronto music scene. “Actually, he was on the tour for _Loose_. He did background vocals for Socrates, my opening act.” “[Started From the Bottom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RubBzkZzpUA)” has a whole new meaning now. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4714948/drake-early-career/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4714948/drake-early-career/"},"headline":"Apparently, Drake Was a Background Singer on Nelly Furtado's Tour","datePublished":"2017-03-28T15:54:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:42:18.054Z","description":"Here's what Drizzy was doing before he was the 6 god","url":"https://time.com/4714948/drake-early-career/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Entertainment","celebrities","Music","Drake","Culture"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4714948/drake-early-career/","name":"Apparently, Drake Was a Background Singer on Nelly Furtado's Tour"}}]}] ```