Drake is undoubtedly one of the biggest stars in the world. While his international appeal seems natural, Drake's former manager, Cortez “Tez” Bryant, explained that there was actually a plan to turn Drizzy into a global superstar.
Tez jumped on Instagram for an episode of Brian "B.Dot" Miller's Art of Facts. During their conversation, Tez tells B.Dot that the Drake vs. Lil Wayne tour in 2014 was his favorite tour to help put together. Drake and Lil Wayne—along with Nicki Minaj—helped lay the foundation for what would become a whole new era of hip-hop. Drizzy and Tunechi celebrated this by going hit-for-hit in their co-headlining tour. Since then, there have been talks of Wayne and Drake heading out on the road together again which Tez said he would love to see happen.
"My favorite tour of them all was this Drake vs. Lil Wayne tour," Tez said around the interview's 15-minute mark. "It was at a time when Drake had arrived as an artist. Seeing him from the inception and as a superstar himself and mentor and mentee going on stage." When B. Dot suggested they should do another tour, Tez agreed. "And they talked about it. I do think we need to do it again."
Further in the conversation, Tez recalled Young Money's mission to simultaneously build Drake's European fan base while they were also laying his foundation stateside.
"When Drake came we knew the formula. We knew as we were promoting in America we had to also promote in Europe," Tez said around the interview's 24-minute mark. "We were promo'ing both places so he was able to build both America and Europe at the same time. We had an international blanket approach for it all."
Tez told Miller that this formula was created off the work that Lil Wayne put in. Wayne has been a star in America since his teenage years, but they had to start fresh in Europe when Weezy wanted to transcend his regional/national success. When it came to Drake, Young Money decided to kill two birds with one stone by going after both markets at once.
While Wayne was building his international fanbase, he was also hoping to take the next step in his career. Tez described to Miller a point in Wayne's career when Young Money collectively decided to take the short in order to become the star Weezy is today.
Tez recalled that Young Money was living up to its name and going after the biggest bags possible. But this would normally result in club appearances and places that didn't expand Wayne's brand. So, they decided to go on tour with Chris Brown and Ne-Yo as an opening act.
"We was making $10,000 a night for 15 minutes," Tez said. "We went from $50-75,000 a night to $10,000 a night ... From then we did a mini House of Blues tour before Tha Carter III—we built it up. But, by that time we had tapped into an audience that hadn't seen him. ... All of these things were recipes for success when Tha Carter III came."
