Degrassi, the Canadian teen soap that gave us Drake, explained

It’s been a tumultuous summer for Drake. In the middle of being one side of hip-hop’s biggest beef of the moment, complete with dueling diss tracks with Pusha T and rumors of a secret love child, the Canadian star dropped a new video for his song “I’m Upset.” And if you happened to be a fan of a certain wholesome Canadian teen soap of yesteryear, you’d notice plenty of familiar faces.

That’s right: Drake returns to his roots in the new vid, reuniting with a bunch of his co-stars on Degrassi: The Next Generation, including his character Jimmy’s best friend Spinner (Shane Kippel), plus the guy responsible for putting Jimmy in that wheelchair (Ephraim Ellis). Among some more well-known faces are The Vampire Diaries’ Nina Dobrev (who played Mia) and even Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, a.k.a. Jay and Silent Bob, who had an arc in season four of TNG.

If all this is gibberish to you, 1) you clearly aren’t Canadian, and 2) we’ve got you covered with everything you need to know about the long-running show. Read on for the Degrassi-splainer you didn’t know you needed.

Degrassi is a franchise of shows created by Linda Schuyler, a former junior high school teacher. The first incarnation was The Kids of Degrassi Street, which began in 1979 as a series of four after-school specials — Ida Makes a Movie, Cookie Goes to the Hospital, Irene Moves In, and Noel Buys a Suit — that aired over four years and chronicled the adventures of the titular kids and their families, who all live on the same street.

In December 1982, the format switched to weekly episodes; in 1986, after 26 episodes spread over four years, Schuyler decided to rework the series and change the setting to a junior high school, so that she could tackle the more complex problems that come along with adolescence. This became the universe of all future Degrassi series.

Degrassi Junior High premiered January 18, 1987, and featured some of the same actors as The Kids of Degrassi Street, though with different character names and family backgrounds. It ran until March 6, 1989, and explored many storylines that future Degrassi series would continue to build on. A notable example was the teen pregnancy plot in the International Emmy–winning season one episode “It’s Late,” in which 14-year-old Christine “Spike” Nelson (Amanda Stepto) finds out she’s pregnant. She later gives birth to a girl named Emma, who eventually becomes one of the main characters in Degrassi: The Next Generation.

Junior High ended March 6, 1989, making way for Degrassi High, which ran from November 6, 1989, to January 28, 1991 and followed the characters through their later years of grade school.

Ten years after the Degrassi High finale came Degrassi: The Next Generation (or simply Degrassi, as it was known in its last four seasons). It ran longer than any other show in the franchise (either before or since), airing for 14 seasons between October 14, 2001, and October 28, 2014. The series featured some of the kids from previous Degrassi series returning as the “adults” — namely, Caitlin Ryan (Stacie Mistysyn), Spike, and Archie “Snake” Simpson (played by Degrassi producer and director Stephan Brogren).

Next Generation is probably the Degrassi series that’s best known to American audiences (and one of the few Canadian shows US audiences are at all familiar with), as it aired in the US on TeenNick. It’s also the best known in general; its first season was Canada’s top-rated drama among the 18- to 49-year-old demographic.

In 2016, Netflix premiered Next Class, another iteration of the same formula, with Brogren playing Principal Simpson and other characters reprising their Next Generation roles. You can now stream four seasons of it if you’re so inclined.

There are also the web series Degrassi Minis, which were produced for seasons five through 14 of Next Generation and are considered “non-canon”; the 2010 TV movie Degrassi Takes Manhattan; and even Jay and Silent Bob Do Degrassi, a three-episode Next Generation arc that sees Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes’s fictional alter egos filming a movie at Degrassi Community School, a project that came about largely as wish fulfillment for Smith, a self-professed Degrassi superfan.

Degrassi has always stayed true to its after-school special roots; every season of each series tackles various permutations of problems like addiction, questions of sexuality and gender identity, cyberbullying, rape, and depression, along with some lighter plots. (See this great list from Vulture’s Margaret Lyons for more examples; it names 239 “issues” covered by The Next Generation alone.)

But that’s part of how this show has survived for so long: It addresses the same topics multiple times, but switches up its approach based on the characters and the time period in which the episodes air.

As Pilot Viruet wrote for the A.V. Club:

Degrassi has been on for so long (and in so many different forms) that it has to recycle basic plots. It works because it makes the show experiment with different outcomes—teens face pregnancy, sexual assault, mental illness, etc., but each character deals with it differently, just as actual people deal with the same things in different ways.

Or as Brogren put it to the Hollywood Reporter: “The drugs have changed but the problems are still the same.”

On that note, some of Degrassi’s plot lines have proved too much for American Standards & Practices boards over the years, especially regarding abortion; a 1989 Degrassi High storyline about a teen pregnancy and subsequent abortion was edited to leave the character’s decision ambiguous, and in 2002, American network the N (the predecessor of TeenNick) refused to air a two-part Next Generation episode in which another character had an abortion.

In 2012, the Degrassi franchise became the longest-running Canadian series of all time, stealing the title from Beachcombers, a dramedy that ran from October 1972 to December 1990 and boasted as its ultra-Canadian premise “the adventures of a professional lumber salvager and his friends in Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada,” per IMDB.

There are a few explanations for Degrassi’s incredible longevity. For one, as creator Schuyler explained to EW in 2012, she has always been dedicated to what she calls “authenticity” (as opposed to reality): exploring the many facets of the teen experience in a way that’s dramatically interesting but that also gets at the underlying truth of the characters’ emotions and experiences.

One way Schuyler has achieved this authenticity is by insisting on age-appropriate casting, making Degrassi a rarity in a TV landscape afflicted with Andrea Zuckerman Syndrome, where 20- and even 30-somethings are regularly cast as teenagers. While this has sometimes meant casting kids with little acting experience, it’s also contributed to the show’s relatability. The Next Generation, after all, overlapped on the air for a couple of seasons with Dawson’s Creek — another show ostensibly about teenagers, but ones whose vocabularies and problems weren’t exactly familiar to the average high schooler.

Rarer still is Schuyler’s commitment to showcasing characters of varying backgrounds. She told EW: “We’re very big on celebration of diversity — racial, sexual, economic — and creating an environment for young people that makes them feel like they’re not completely alone.” This is unusual in the current TV climate, which is just beginning to take baby steps away from total whiteness, and downright astonishing for a show that’s been around since the ‘70s.

Degrassi’s unique characteristics make it tough to name an analogous American series; though the US has no shortage of dramatic high school–set shows, it’s hard to think of many that share Degrassi’s commitment to capturing so many truths about the teenage experience. The closest cousin might be something like Freaks and Geeks, which shares some of Degrassi’s essential sweetness and refusal to shy away from the more humiliating aspects of adolescence — but where Freaks was a critical darling that ran for just one season, Degrassi is a multigenerational Canadian institution, with legions of fans both ironic and sincere.

While most Degrassi actors are probably not well-known to US audiences that don’t watch the series, the show has spawned a small number of recognizable alums, all from The Next Generation. Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev appeared from 2006 to 2008 as Mia Jones, a single teen mother; Shenae Grimes-Beech, of 90210 reboot fame, played cheerleader/Mia’s eventual nemesis Darcy Edwards from 2004 to 2008. Cassie Steele, who played Manny Santos, went on to star in The LA Complex, a short-lived Canadian summer series also helmed by Schuyler (and imported to the US by The CW).

But the biggest name by far is, of course, Aubrey Graham, better known as Drake: rap superstar, Rihanna stan, and the man responsible for unleashing “Hotline Bling” upon the world. Beginning when he was 14, the pre-Drake Graham appeared on 145 episodes of Degrassi, from 2001 to 2008, as basketball star Jimmy Brooks. In the season four two-parter “Time Stands Still,” Jimmy gets shot in the back by a fellow student and is paralyzed from the waist down in what’s still one of the most famous moments of the series’ entire run.

Eventually, Drake was “kicked off the show,” as he told W magazine in October 2015, because he was trying to balance his acting responsibilities with a burgeoning musical career:

Back then, I’d spend a full day on set and then go to the studio to make music until 4 or 5 a.m. I’d sleep in my dressing room and then be in front of the cameras again by 9 a.m. Eventually, they realized I was juggling two professions and told me I had to choose.

Still, he and the show seem to be on good terms, judging by how many of his former co-stars agreed to appear in his “I’m Upset” video.

Not a fan of Drake or Degrassi? Then at least do yourself the favor of watching this hilarious Kroll Show sketch “Wheels, Ontario,” a Degrassi parody set in a school where all the kids but one are in wheelchairs.

It’s a perfect parody of all the things that make Degrassi lovable (and mockable): its over-the-top storylines, its sappy drama, its unfailing niceness, and, of course, the Canadian accents.