Drake's opulent Toronto mansion makes the cover of Architectural Digest
Billboard, VIBE, The Source, XXL, The Hollywood Reporter, The Fader, Complex, SLAM, (almost) Rolling Stone... Drake has been on the cover of so many major magazines throughout the course of his career, it's hard to compile a definitive list... though I can say for certain he's played cover boy to GQ at least six times.
It wasn't until this week, however, that Champagne Papi finally achieved the most-coveted of celebrity periodical features: his own spread in Architectural Digest.
The Grammy-winning musician and business mogul can be seen on the cover of AD's May 2020 issue standing inside what the American magazine calls his hometown "manor house."
You can judge the design of "The Embassy," as Drake likes to call his Toronto home, for yourself via AD's dispatch here.
"Superstar Drake goes home to Toronto to build his eye-popping pleasure dome," reads the deck of an image-filled feature article by Mayer Rus, published to architecturaldigest.com on Wednesday.
"Remember the chintzy, pimped-out McMansions that were a staple of the long-running MTV series Cribs?" the piece starts. "The Toronto home of mega recording artist Aubrey Drake Graham is something else altogether."
That it is, as we saw when Drake released the music video for his new song Toosie Slide last week.
Through the Toosie video, fans got brief glimpses of everything from the artist's gleaming kitchen and trophy room to an indoor pool bar that could easily serve as a high-end strip club, aesthetically speaking.
The Architectural Digest cover story goes much further with high quality photos from inside the 50,000-square-foot Bridle Path manse, as well as freshly-revealed deets about the construction of "Drake's astonishing domicile."
Rus praises the man behind the mansion, Canadian architectural and interior designer Ferris Rafauli, for his meticulous conception and execution of the work, calling it "a marvel of old-world craftsmanship, constructed of limestone, bronze, exotic woods, and other noble materials."
Detail highlights a bespoke Bösendorfer concert grand piano co-designed by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, bedding with a tapestry by Alexander McQueen, and "a monumental iteration of Lobmeyr's iconic Metropolitan chandelier, originally designed by Hans Harald Rath for the Viennese maker to decorate the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1963."
The latter work is the second-largest installation of its kind in the entire world, containing more than 20,000 pieces of hand-cut Swarovski crystal.
"I think the house shows that I have true faith in myself to take on this task when I was just 27 and see it through," said Drizzy to AD of his house, unintentionally (or maybe intentionally?) quoting the theme song from Degrassi, where he got his start as an actor on the Canadian teen TV soap opera.
"I also think the house says that I will forever remain solid in the place I was born."
Now 33, the artist has been working on his house as a passion project since at least 2016.
"Because I was building it in my hometown, I wanted the structure to stand firm for 100 years. I wanted it to have a monumental scale and feel," said Drake in the cover story. "It will be one of the things I leave behind, so it had to be timeless and strong."
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