Source Material: Drake, Thank Me Later

A Tribe Called Quest: The Anthology
Key Track: "Electric Relaxation"
Tribe were the progenitors of the cool-out session, creating a modern equivalent to bebop. The supple bass-and-drums arrangements of classic songs like "Jazz (We've Got)" and "Oh My God" brought Q-Tip and Phife Dawg's wry urban sensibility to the fore. You could draw a direct line from the blushing romance of "Electric Relaxation" to Drake hits like "Find Your Love."

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Aaliyah: Age Ain't Nothing but a Number
Key Track: "At Your Best (You Are Love)"
At the opening of Thank Me Later's "Unforgettable," producer Boi-1da sampled Aaliyah. "Let me know … let me know ..." It's as if he was invoking her spirit. Since her tragic death in 2001, Aaliyah Haughton has attained sainthood in the R&B community, and her angelic voice represents a soulful purity that both men and women want to achieve. Drake has said as much: he recently paid tribute to her via Twitter on the August 25 anniversary of her death.

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Common: Resurrection
Key Track: "Book of Life"
Common's second album is justly lionized for "I Used to Love H.E.R.," a seminal comparison of hip-hop to a wayward female lover. But Resurrection also delves into what would later be termed "emo-rap," as Common riffs on his troubles in a conversational tone. On "Book of Life," he admits, "All I eat is fast food" and that he drinks too much. "My liver I burn it up," he says. Like Drake, Common had a deceptively smooth style that led detractors to underrate him as an emcee.

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Mos Def: Black on Both Sides
Key Track: "Umi Says"
Before Drake, Mos Def was the most famous child actor to become an emcee. (For a little hilarity, look up his appearance on '90s tele-drama The Cosby Mysteries on YouTube.) More significantly, Mos Def used a hybrid approach, singing just as easily as he rapped. On his dazzling 1999 debut, Black on Both Sides, Mos Def sounded honest yet fragile; on "Umi Says," he sang, "Sometimes I feel like crying."

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J Dilla: Welcome 2 Detroit
Key Track: "Come Get It"
Before J Dilla became the king of Donuts, he fused neo-soul, '80s funk and a Detroit playa lifestyle. "Conscious" folks were seduced by his production, but they often complained about his lyrical callousness. Check Welcome 2 Detroit and "Come Get It," where guest rapper Elzhi busts metaphorical gunshots while Dwele croons, "If you want it, come and get it"; or "B.B.E. (Big Booty Express)," where Dilla chants the title in a cadence similar to that of Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express." Dilla's street symphonies may have elicited controversy in their day, but they made sense to Drake. On "Show Me a Good Time," Drake raps, "I came up in the underground, though/ So I'm gonna spend another $10,000 for Dilla."

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Little Brother: The Listening
Key Track: "The Way You Do It"
"What up Little Bro/ What up Slum Vil/ I hope y'all know that you're the reason I have fun still," rhymes Drake on "Fear." Amidst a subset of rap fans, Durham, N.C., duo Little Brother are considered one of the few acts of the past decade to promote traditional rap values, from sampled beats reminiscent of Pete Rock to a keen awareness of black culture. But musically, they carried the flag of the late '90s neo-soul/rap fusion. (Some critics have complained that Little Brother's music was too beholden to influences like The Roots and Gang Starr.) The group's 2003 album, produced by former member 9th Wonder, is like a hip-hop version of quiet storm jazz.

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Jay-Z: The Black Album
Key Track: "December 4th"
On "Fear" from his 2009 EP So Far Gone, Drake admits, "I never cried when Pac died/ But I probably will when Hov does/ And if my tears hold value then I will drop one for every single thing he showed us." It's a sign of how influential Jay-Z — aka "Jay Hova" — is to '80s babies. Perhaps the self-proclaimed god emcee's greatest moment was The Black Album. After dangerously toying with Nas on "Takeover," and getting flattened by his rival as a result, Jay-Z thrust himself into a defensive introspection. It didn't come to him naturally — on "December 4th," he explains why we should love him, not the other way around. But most rap artists, let alone their male fans, can't admit failure, either, which may be why Jay-Z's halting assessment of his (temporarily) damaged career not only touched a chord, but restored his popularity.

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K-os: Joyful Rebellion
Key Track: "The Love Song"
Though relatively unknown to U.S. fans, K-os is a Canadian pioneer. It's easy to hear the similarities between his big hit "The Love Song" and Drake's work, from the sung chorus to its invocation of hip-hop as a higher calling. "This is not a love song, it's a sonnet/ Damn it feels good to see the people up on it," raps K-os, referencing Common's "I Used to Love H.E.R." and Biz Markie's "Vapors" in one fell swoop. On a deeper level, K-os' Joyful Rebellion, which is probably his best album, demonstrated how a deep understanding of genre subsequently enabled him to bend and break its rules, a feat Drake undoubtedly hopes to duplicate.

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Kanye West: 808s and Heartbreak
Key Track: "Love Lockdown"
On Internet message boards, it has become cliché to argue that Drake ripped off West's 808s and Heartbreak. The former's Thank Me Later replicates many of West's musical elements, particularly the Auto-Tuned vocals (though Drake, who is a slightly better singer, doesn't rely on Auto-Tune as much). But West's fourth album is essentially a narrow conceptual piece. He mourns breaking up with his fiancée and, less emphatically, the death of his mother, Dr. Donda West. It's histrionic and wildly accusatory, with songs like "Heartless" and "Love Lockdown" rehashing arguments with his former lover. The brokenhearted tone of 808s and Heartbreak is starkly different from the lovelorn yet optimistic Thank Me Later, yet it casts a long shadow over the careers of Drake and other singing rappers like B.o.B. and Kid Cudi.

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Roscoe Dash: All the Way Turnt Up
Don't laugh. On "Up All Night," Drake mimics vocal cadences from Roscoe Dash's club smash, specifically the line, "Ah/ So we do it how we do it." Bad artists steal, great artists borrow.