The Dangerous Road From Child Star to Rap Icon: Drake vs. Orlando Brown

Okay, so I know firsthand that's it's difficult enough to infiltrate the music industry as an unknown artist with the ability to mold their reputation as they enter the industry. But what about those child stars who we learned to love as their characters on kiddie shows or youthful teen dramas. How do they make that transition...and do it correctly?

Let's start with the most obvious and recent example: Drake. Before he was known in 2009 and 2010 as hip hop's newest acquisition and became a household name in the rap world, he was Jimmy Brooks, star high school basketball player who's life took a turn for tragedy after being shot in the back and paralyzed, bound to a wheelchair, in the Canadian teen drama, Degrassi. Now personally, Degrassi is my favorite show on television, and part of it has to do with Drake. I came across Drake as a rapper first (I was kind of late hopping on the Degrassi bandwagon) and the fact that I had grown to respect him as an artist instantly gave the television show more credibility. Over a Thanksgiving break in 2007, I started watching a marathon of the show and I've been a fan ever since. Drake's character on the show exhibited some of the best acting the show presented, and they even implemented his rapping abilities.

While Drake was doing this, he was also working on himself as an actual solo rap artist, working with respected talent in Toronto and in the mainstream industry, crafting the critically acclaimed "Comeback Season" mixtape, which ultimately led him to be affiliated with Lil Wayne while crafting his most successful mixtape "So Far Gone"; resulting in a deal, #1 singles, Grammy nominations, so on and so forth. So that's one example of an efficient transition from child stardom to rap superstardom, fields that are, for the most part, unrelated to each other. Generally speaking, his acting history hasn't been a problem for his reputation in the game, which is quite rare. I feel Drake was able to enter the game with a more hip-hop and soulful sound because that's more accepted from a actor turned rapper vs. coming in with a COMPLETELY different persona than your character on TV. The fact that he rapped on the show and some of his first projects ("Room For Improvement" and "Comeback Season") were relatable extensions of his character's rapping meant his acceptance was easily obtained.. On a side note though, as he has began to take on sort of a more street appeal on Young Money records, people tend to bring up that fact that he's still that mixed kid from Degrassi in a wheelchair, and to not push his luck too hard. But I believe he was able to make the switch nicely.

Now let's move on to another example. Before we get into talking about this guy, let me state that I'm a big fan of his. He's been an actor, and I've watched him all his life on television shows. I'm talking about Orlando Brown. Growing up, I was able to observe Orlando on shows such as Family Matters, The Jamie Foxx Show and most recently, in the role of Eddie Thomas on the Disney Channel's hit TV show, That's So Raven, starring Raven Symone. Now, many (close-minded) people always tend to feel a certain way about Disney stars. They feel they really don't have talent and Disney seems to want to mold every single kid they work with into some acting, singing profit-making machine. Well, I can't confirm or deny the motives of the company, but I can say one thing, Orlando Brown was a great asset to them for the years he was on the channel. Many of you may not know this, but there is a great deal of Disney music that I'm actually fond of, especially some of these newer artists who are pushing the limits of just making cookie-cutter corporate kids music and exercising their artistic abilities as far as they can go within the guidelines of the company's criteria. This type of drive during usually helps them continue to be a thriving force after they leave and become adults. While Orlando Brown was with Disney, I tuned into some of his records he made. He was pretty much the only one making rap songs on Disney. Now, on the surface, people would probably laugh at the entire idea of a rapper on Disney, simply by looking at the cliché definition of a rapper. But as we all know, the criteria on how a rapper is defined has changed drastically, especially in the past decade.

While on Hollywood Records (Disney's Music Label), Orlando made uplifting, inspirational joints that at times may have been borderline corny (see "Super Cali", a remake of the Mary Poppins song "Supercalifragilisticexpedialous), but most of the time were sincere quality records that I think that regular music fans could respect. Below is a song he did with Raven Symone for "Disney Mania 4" called "Little By Little", on which he served up some spoken word style verses with Raven, while she handled the bouncy hook. He then ended it with a powerful 8-bar verse that should have turned many heads who were listening without a bias against anything connected with such a kid-oriented project. I know when I heard that , the boy "O.B" was legit enough for me and I really seen him potentially going places after his career at Disney ended. Oh, did I mention he was a singer as well? In 2006, he released his debut album "Trade It All". Though every single track wasn't hitting, he had some gems on the album, including "Love U" and the title track "Trade It All".



Orlando is currently rapping and has a very similar flow to Lil Wayne. I sort of dislike the change up, which I think is because of his acting history. Trying to approach the game with the hood, street approach is going to be more negative then it is positive for his career. He's received moderate buzz with his attempted dance joint "Peter Pan" - which once again is ridicule worthy based on his history with DISNEY, not to mention to prominent presentation of his gangsta Mickey Mouse Tattoo in the music video. Now, of course everyone grows up, and I'm not going to lie, from a strictly hip-hop standpoint without considering my frame of reference of his craft as an actor and artist previously, his rap music is hot (well, maybe not the "Peter Pan" joint. That was a stretch), but the guy obviously has rapping talent. He needs to consider how he's going to market himself effectively coming from being a child star and how people are going to embrace him. Coming in talking about how you flow is "hotter than Dragon coochie," - see "It's My Time" by Donte feat. Lil J, Juelz Santana, Orlando Brown - is possibly a clever line if Mr. Dwayne Carter had of said it, but not from the kid you remember who used to hang out with the twins from "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" and sing " A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes". You have to figure out your identity, or the industry will eat you up, especially when they got stuff on you like that. For those who aren't familiar with Brown's newer work, check out "Like Aye", a Jay Hustle track that features Orlando Brown.



We all know that Drake is at the top and plans to stay there. I wish the best for Orlando Brown and I hope he can break through to the mainstream soon enough, once he figures out what he's going to do.

Just something that was on my mind (random I know). That was a Dreamer's Perspective. What's your take on all of this?