Drake revealed his dad Dennis Graham’s cancer battle in a new song.
“My dad got cancer right now, we battlin’ stages,” Drake, 39, raps on the song “Make Them Cry,” released on Friday, May 15. “Trust me when I say there’s plenty things that I’d rather be facin’.”
The track opens Drake’s highly anticipated Iceman record on Friday. The musician also dropped two surprise albums — Habibti and Maid of Honour — following a four-part livestream, which wrapped up with the final episode on Thursday, May 14.
Drake (real name Aubrey Graham) did not disclose any further details about his dad’s health condition in the song. However, he did rap about his childhood.
“I’m an only child, no one could’ve made another,” Drake raps in the “Make Them Cry” opening lines. “I have to father my mother and treat my son’s grandfather like my older brother.”
As the song continues, the lyrics read: “I know for sure that my parents, they look at me and see an overcomer / I’m looking back at them and these days, I see an older couple.”
After Iceman was officially released, Dennis, 71, took to Instagram and shared a sweet photo of him and Drake in a show of support for his son.
“The Ice Man and The Nice Man just doing what we do, don’t get it twisted,” Dennis wrote alongside a photo of him smiling and hugging Drake. The comments section was flooded with messages of support for Dennis following the cancer reveal.
Drake has spoken candidly about his relationship with his father throughout his fame. Dennis even addressed rumors that he was an “absentee father” during a 2019 interview.
“I have always been with Drake,” Dennis on Nick Cannon‘s Close Conversations radio show at the time. “I talk to him, if not every day, every other day. And we really got into a deep conversation about that.”
He continued. “I said, ‘Drake, why are you saying all this stuff about me, man? Like, this is not cool.’ And he goes, ‘Dad, it sells records.’ I said, ‘OK, cool. Talk about me.’”
Drake addressed Dennis’ comments in an Instagram Story post at the time.
“My father will say anything to anyone that’s willing to listen to him. It’s sad when family gets like this but what can we really do? That’s the people we are stuck with,” the musician wrote. “Every bar I ever spit was the truth and the truth is hard for some people to accept.”
Drake is a father himself, sharing 8-year-old son Adonis with artist Sophie Brussaux.