It’s amazing to think that at this time last spring, Drake was a relative unknown. A year ago, Lil Wayne brought Drake and the rest of his Young Money camp onto the mtvU Spring Break stage in Panama City Beach, Florida, for a performance of “Every Girl.” That was just after So Far Gone dropped, but shortly before the mixtape took Drake to another stratosphere.

Fast-forward to last week’s Spring Break 2010 shows in Acapulco, Mexico, and there couldn’t be a more perfect example of the line in his song “Over”: “I know way too many people here right now that I didn’t know last year.” Drake performed that song — the first single off his upcoming Thank Me Later — for the first time on television in front of hundreds of excited, scantily clad partyers. This time, Drizzy was rapping by his lonesome, backed only by a live band.

Drake recentlysaid that he wanted “Over” (produced by Boi-1da and Al Khaaliq) to prepare everyone for what’s to come from him.

“I wanted to emerge at first from this album and just let people know, ‘This is how I’m coming out in the public eye. I’m ready for anything,’ ” he said. “Then when you get the album, it’s like, ‘Oh, he’s still human. He’s still thinking the same way.’ I wanted people to understand I could have lost it. ‘Over’ could have been my entire album. Just ’cause that’s what this industry and game will do to you if you lose yourself.”

At Spring Break, Drake looked like he was composed and enjoying himself — jumping around, smiling and taking time to hit a beach ball back toward the crowd.

Drake’s fellow Young Money member Nicki Minaj also performed at the show. She joined Ludacris onstage in a white one-piece bathing suit covered by a see-through body suit and a platinum-blond wig as she spit her equally eccentric guest verse for “My Chick Bad.” Trey Songz also hit the stage to perform his cocksure, sultry single “I Invented Sex.”