Following the first appearance of Lil Wayne at Skatepark of Tampa back in August and again at last weekend's 18th Annual Tampa Pro, hip hop artist Lil Wayne and his Cash Money empire announced their further expansion into skateboarding today. Young Money closed a deal with Skatepark of Tampa to acquire a majority ownership in the long-standing skateboard facility. The existing staff and owner Brian Schaefer all have contracts to keep their jobs and remain on staff in a consulting position for at least five years. "I hope Trukfit makes chain wallets," said former SPoT owner Brian Schaefer. SPoT General Manager Ryan Clements opted to cash out and take a position at Vans. His first project will be announcing the live webcast for the Phoenix Am this weekend, which is sponsored by Vans. "I knew craka wasn't a real fan when I saw that rebel flag belt buckle," Wayne commented. on Sunday, April 1st. The SPoT staff wishes him well on his new path. Additional terms of the deal include Lil Wayne required to make an appearance at all Damn Am events that SPoT Productions hosts, including two new stops in London on June 22nd and Huntington Beach for the US Open in August.

With the financial assistance from the Cash Money empire, look for even more Damn Am stops around the world soon. "We're working on a deal to include free Medicinal Marijuana with all online orders now," said Rob Meronek, SPoT's digital guru. "The spirit, style, and soul of Skatepark of Tampa cannot be bought or sold, but I sure am looking forward to my new grill and Trukfit ink. My rap career that only my friends know about might finally take off, too. We're still the same old skateboarders we've always been, though." "My first order of business at SPoT will be to do away with the logo and create something more Trukfit friendly," Wayne explained passionately. Wayne followed up with, "We some asshole n**gas, call us diarrhea," when asked how all those people who have SPoT tattoos would feel about his decision to change the logo. Further terms of the deal will be released this summer when the entire SPoT staff joins YMCMB on tour. “Drake The Type Of…” is a series of fan-written factoids that are presented as the personality traits of the Canadian rapper Drake.

Typically iterated in the form of tweets, comments and image macros, the series is meant to poke fun at the rapper’s stage persona as being emotionally sensitive and even effeminate, which goes against the alpha male stereotype that is still prevalent in hip hop. The earliest known tweet to feminize the rapper’s persona with the phrase “Drake the type of” was posted by @DJ_BERN on April 14th, 2011. Though it is unclear to whom the tweet was addressed, DJ Bern joked that Drake is the type of person who would challenge the traditional gender roles by letting his girlfriend propose to him. Between 2011 and early 2013, “Drake The Type Of” factoids continued to spread on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. On June 17th, 2013, YouTuber MeechOnMars compiled a number of these jokes into a YouTube video (shown below). On June 22nd, a compilation thread of “Drake the Type of…” jokes was submitted to the Lil Wayne HQ Forums, yielding more than 25 responses from the readers.

On July 25th, the single topic Tumblr blog Drake the Type… was launched with screenshots of similar jokes taken from the comment sections of World Star Hip Hop (shown below, left). On July 29th, another single topic Tumblr was launched with a series of image macros featuring various “Drake the Type of” tweets and comments in the style of Just Little Things blogs (shown below, right). On July 31st, the Twitter account @DrakeTheTypeOf was launched, accruing nearly 3,200 followers in the next three months, and on August 1st, the Instagram account DrakeTheTypeOf was created. david and goliath monster hoodieOn August 8th, the first Facebook fan page dedicated to the series was created, accumulating more than 22,000 likes in a month and a half. hoodies utan ärmarOn August 14th, Buzzfeed posted a compilation of 16 “Drake The Type Of” tweets, each accompanied by a photoshopped image of the rapper (shown below).itc hoodie

By August 21st, the jokes had begun appearing on 4chan and Reddit. The same day, a second Facebook fan page was created, gaining more than 184,000 likes in slightly more than one month. Also in August, a discussion thread titled “Drake is the type of…” was posted on the Rap Genius forum, attracting dozens of responses. On September 15th, Twitter accounts @DrizzyThatType and @DrakeeTheType posted their first tweets, gaining 166,000 followers and 11,000 followers, respectively, in less than two weeks. gt86 hoodieOn September 25th, Tumblr user fromtheinnersoul posted a compilation of tweets from @DrizzyThatType, racking up more than 27,000 notes in 24 hours.krampus hoodie Your Order Delivered as Quick as Tomorrow!fug hoodie Free Shipping on Standard 2 Week Delivery Schedulesxanax hoodie buy

Rush Delivery by Feb 13 - Rush Fees Apply - Call 1-855-712-4467 Rush Delivery by Feb 14 - 20% Rush Fee + S/H Rush Delivery by Feb 15 - 15% Rush Fee + S/H Rush Delivery by Feb 16 - 10% Rush Fee + S/H Standard Delivery By Feb 23 - FREE NATIONWIDE SHIPING (except AK & HI) Quick fun facts before you order... We print & ship all our orders from Houston, Texas. Over 300 USA jobs are supported by orders like yours! 2013 Top Small Business SBA Award Winner A+ Accredited BBB Rating Over 500,000 Satisfied CustomersIt’s been difficult trying to write this op-ed. I thought to myself, “Your magnum opus about Drake has to be good enough that you won’t get embarrassed if Drake reads it. Not that Drake will read it. It won’t get to him. This is **the New School Free Press** after all, not the **Toronto Star**, Canada’s biggest daily newspaper. Drake won’t see this. But just in case he does, this has to be the best thing you’ve ever written.

You can’t be embarrassed.” But then I remembered: if there is one celebrity who would read this random college newspaper review, it would be Drake. We’re talking about the zeitgeist-meme-cornball king of hip-hop. We’re talking about the guy who, after being ridiculed for lint rolling his pants while sitting courtside at a Raptors game, released his own Drake-branded lint rollers, embracing the embarrassment. We’re talking about the guy who has appropriated emoji culture so fully that he has the praying hands tattooed on his arm. We’re talking about the guy who inspired the “Drake the type of…” tumblr, in which people pontificate on how soft the dude is. Drake is a meme. A meme who, I thought, might very well read this op-ed. This is the kind of inner monologue that produces crippling anxiety. I love Drake so I don’t want to disappoint. I’ve loved Drake since 2008, when he released his own version of a song called “Still Fly,” originally by a rapper named Page on which he sang the chorus.

“Still Fly” was Drake announcing to the smallish number of people who heard the song that he was arriving on the scene, that he was “still fly, I’m sky high.” And it had a nice melody. I was seventeen years old, and I was down with that song. I loved Aubrey Graham before that, when he was Jimmy on “Degrassi,” and while it took me a few days to put two-and-two together—Aubrey Graham was Drake—I, unlike the of rest the world, accepted it and moved on. Even in 2008, Drake was “responsible for everything you listen to,” as he rapped on “Still Fly.” He had three singles that year, “Best I Ever Had,” “Successful,” and “Forever,” and if you turned on Hot97 at any point during that stretch, there was a good chance you’d hear one of those songs. “Successful” and “Forever” featured some serious guest-star power. Between the two songs, you get Lil Wayne (twice), Bun B, Kanye West, and Eminem. It’s no surprise those songs got airplay. But “Best I Ever Had” was Drake’s first real solo hit, a love song by all accounts.

It samples a song called “Falling in Love” by Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds, and it’s where Drake first debuts his signature style of emotional rap-singing. And the video is dope. Now, in 2015, Drake is even more responsible for everything we’re listening to. And the sentiment is even more valid after he dropped his album/mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late on February 13, 2015, an early Valentine’s day gift to all. He didn’t promote it. No one knew this was coming. The day before, he released a short film, “Jungle,” on Vimeo, in which nothing really happens and we get about one minute of the song of the same name. This film is about fame and the problems it can bring. Drake, starring sadly out the window of his car, says that “Shit’s just crazy man, the whole energy out here is just changing, you know. It’s just getting dark, man, quick.” It’s understood that he’s “having a hard time adjusting to fame,” as he rapped on “Marvin’s Room” in 2011.

The next day, the album arrived on iTunes, billed as a mixtape you’d have to actually pay for. It was not hosted on any of the normal hip hop mixtape blogs, like datpiff or livemixtapes. If you wanted it for free (or, sort of free, depending on how you look at it), you could listen to it on Spotify. Drake pulled a reverse Taylor Swift, and it worked, selling 495,000 copies in its first week. “If I die, all I know is I’m a mothafuckin’ legend,” Drake raps on the first track, aptly titled “Legend.” And while everyone is, of course, entitled to their own opinions, this statement has reached the level of being “measurably true.” As of March 7, 2015, Drake owned 42% of Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs Chart. That’s each of the seventeen songs on his surprise album/mixtape plus four other songs. The album has a strange quality to it. It seems almost as if Drake released it just to satisfy his record contract–how else to explain selling it on iTunes yet calling it a mixtape?

(Mixtapes are, historically, free). But this is a strange time for hip hop, and, particularly, Drake and his Young Money Cash Money Billionaire friends, one of the first families of hip hop over the past few years, responsible for nine number one albums since 2008. The friends, it seems, are no longer quite that. Wayne is suing Birdman, co-founder of Cash Money Records, for $51 million for delaying his new album, “Tha Carter V.” Drake stands with Wayne, and he says so on If You’re Reading This, rapping “Walk up in my label like, where the check though?/Yeah, I said it, wouldn’t dap you with the left, ho.” Drake no longer fucks with his record label. It makes me sad, the dissolution of Young Money Cash Money. I don’t know what to do with my YMCMB sweatshirt now. But I do know that Drake isn’t lying when he calls himself a legend. “Please don’t speak to me like I’m that Drake from four years ago, I’m at a higher place,” he raps on “No Tellin’.” Because you are at a higher place.