An interesting factoid: Drake has released three studio albums, four mixtapes, 77 singles (52 as a featured artist), seven promotional singles, and 36 video songs. To date he has sold approximately 5M albums. He has also had 11 No. 1 hits on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart, and 13 No. 1s on the Rap Songs chart.

Following a couple of commercially positive collaborations with other artists – together with "I Invented sex" with singer Trey Songz, "cash to Blow" and "4 My city (Play Ball)" with fellow rapper Birdman, "right Above It" with Lil Wayne, and "Aston Martin song" with rapper Rick Ross – Drake launched his debut studio album, Thank Me Later, in June 2010. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and the Canadian Albums Chart, and subsequently was certified Platinum on both sides of the border. - Source: Fresh MP3

Another interesting factoid: South by Southwest, the festival, was launched in 1986 by Roland Swenson, Louis Black, and Nick Barbaro who were then working at The Austin Chronicle:. They organized SXSW with the intention of bringing the music festival culture to Texas. Black came up with the name South by as a twist on the name of Alfred Hitchcock's spy thriller film North by Northwest.

— “Alexisonfire is officially back" may well be true, but it seems some may be reading more into this than they should.  Writing on the band's Facebook page, AOF collectively summarizes what is... and isn't so:  "The truth is, nothing has really changed. We all have our own careers and families which require our attention and as far as Alexisonfire is concerned, there are no immediate plans.

What 'Alexisonfire is back' does mean is that the 5 of us are back in each other’s lives and are as good friends now as we’ve ever been. If we’re lucky, we'll see you out there again. Thank you for sharing in the moment with us."

— Seven years after their first collaboration earned rave reviews and a devoted fan following, Buck 65 and Symphony Nova Scotia once again join forces for another mash-up of symphonic electronic hip-hop on Friday, October 2nd and Saturday, October 3rd at Halifax’s Rebecca Cohn Auditorium. Dinuk Wijeratne is conducting. The performances will mix some of the “greatest hits” from the '08 collaboration with new orchestrations of some of Buck's later creations, including "All There Is to Say About Love", "Super Pretty Naughty", and "Only War". All orchestrations are by Halifax arrangers David Christensen and Asif Illyas. No doubt the hometown rapper will be plugging the same on his Rich Terfry Radio Two afternoon show, Drive.

— Ottawa-based trio MonkeyJunk has won more Maple Blues Awards than anyone we know. The swamp dogs will be celebrating the release of their new album, Moon Turn Red (Stony Plain) with a performance at The Dakota Tavern on October 15th and it's a dead certainty that David Wilcox will be on hand to add some zip to the monkyjunkies cover of his classic "Hot Hot Papa" that found its way onto the album. Another possible show is Big Sugar's Gordie Johnson who added some of his own funk playing Hammond organ on the included "Love Attack."

An aside to Monkey Junk's latest Ken Friesen-produced album, Moon Turns Red appears on Stony Plain Records — the Edmonton-based roots label founded by Holger Petersen with business partner Alvin Jahns. Petersen, known as Canada's "Ambassador of the Blues", has hosted the popular radio show “Natch’ Blues” on CKUA Edmonton for 46 years, and "Saturday Night Blues" on CBC Radio One for 29 years. Talk about staying power!

— Rapper Jay Z has asked a California federal judge to block the disclosure of his confidential agreement with Live Nation Worldwide Inc. in a copyright lawsuit, comparing the concert promoter’s safeguards for how it formulates Jay Z’s compensation to those protecting the recipe for Coca-Cola.

— Voting is now open for the Nova Scotia Music Awards. In-Flight Safety and Rich Aucoin lead the pack with 6 nominations each. Other multi-nominees include Christina Martin and Jenn Grant each with five, followed by Alana Yorke, Gabrielle Papillon, Gypsophilia and Mo Kenney with four apiece. The annual festival, conference and awards runs Nov. 5 through 8, population 7200 and home to one of the largest lobster fishing fleets in the world.

—The countdown is on for the 6^th International Ukulele Ceilidh which will be held, once again, in Liverpool, NS, from October 22^nd to October 25^th.  The White Point Beach bunny Resort is the headquarters for delegates and main stage concerts take place Friday and Saturday nights, at the historic Astor Theatre in the port town that was once home to privateers but never the Fab Four. The Ukulele Ceilidh includes international performers and attracts attendees from all over the world.