Before Drake was the 6 God — before OVO, before the stadiums, before the 6 had a name — there was one man in Toronto building the culture from scratch. Drake didn't just know him. He put him in the music forever.
Let's get straight to it. No speculation. No "sources say." Just the facts — and the facts are extraordinary.
On Weston Road Flows, one of the most personal tracks on Views — Drake's album that sat #1 on the Billboard 200 for 13 consecutive weeks and sold over 1.6 million copies in its first week — Drake rapped:
"Big Apple had the white Hummer parked right in front of fluid, and we be walkin' in that b*tch like we already knew it."
That is not fiction. That is not a metaphor. That is Drake, at the peak of his career, on his biggest album, documenting real Toronto history. The white Hummer was real. Fluid was a real venue. And Big Apple? That was Hozea Massiah. A real man. A real legend. Drake's Toronto.
It didn't stop at one mention. On Get Over It, Drake said "Ask Apple how I get it, though" — directly crediting Big Apple as the man who taught him how to move in the world. On Own It, he referenced the DRÜGS clothing brand Hozea built: "The new drügs got the kids trippin' these days."
Three songs. Three name-checks. One man.
Who Was Hozea "Big Apple" Massiah?
Born March 10, 1971 in Toronto, Hozea Massiah became one of the most connected figures in the city's hip-hop underground — not as a rapper, but as something rarer and more important: a builder.
What Hozea Built I'M NOT A RAPPER, DRÜGS (Do Right Ü Gain Success) clothing. Gorgeous Gangsters. Big Apple World TV — a media platform that filmed and promoted Toronto's emerging artists. Fluid Thursdays — Toronto's iconic weekly hip-hop night. SwaggNews media company.
The phrase "I'M NOT A RAPPER" wasn't just clever. It was a worldview. It said: you can be deeply embedded in hip-hop culture without ever picking up a microphone. You can be the promoter, the designer, the connector, the builder. You can own the culture without performing in it. That philosophy — built in 2005, two years before Drake released his first mixtape — became the foundation of everything.
The Wu-Tang Story Nobody Tells
Here is a piece of Toronto history that most people — even dedicated Drake fans — do not know:
Hozea Massiah was the first promoter to bring Wu-Tang Clan to Toronto for a sold-out show.
This happened before Drake was famous. Before Toronto was "The 6." At a time when New York dominated, Atlanta was rising, and Toronto was still proving itself to the hip-hop world — Big Apple went to New York and brought its most legendary group to his city. Sold it out. Made history.
What Drake Knew
Drake came up in the same Toronto world Hozea had already built. He didn't just observe Big Apple from a distance. He walked in it. He wore the brand. He understood what Big Apple represented — the entrepreneur's version of hip-hop. The builder's version. The man who made the room, not just performed in it.
When Drake sat down to write Weston Road Flows — a song about his real memories, his real Toronto — the name that came out was Big Apple. Not as a courtesy. As documentation. As truth.
And Westside Gunn — one of the most respected artists in underground hip-hop, signed to Roc Nation, performing to sold-out crowds worldwide — included Big Apple on his 2025 album Heels Have Eyes 2. Because when you're a legend, other legends know.
May 6, 2025
Hozea "Big Apple" Massiah passed away on May 6, 2025 at age 54. The tributes came from across the hip-hop world. Toronto Life called him a street mogul. Podstarz — the Toronto media network he was a cornerstone of — called him family. The community that knew him had always known the scale of what he'd built.
Before he left, he said one thing to his family that stayed: "Even when I'm gone, I'll still be here."
The Brand Lives
His brother Rich Massiah and his mother E. Massiah opened Big Apples World — the official store carrying his vision into the future. The I'M NOT A RAPPER Tee. The brand Drake wore. The DRÜGS line Drake referenced. Every piece is the real thing — not a tribute, not a reprint, not a knockoff. The original brand, made for the people who understand what it means.
Every sticker. Every tee. Every hoodie is a piece of the Toronto Hip-Hop foundation that Big Apple helped shape.
Own a piece at bigapplesworld.com https://bigapplesworld.com/products/i-m-not-a-rapper-t-shirts?variant=42217738960981