Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and African percussion instruments and influence, in addition to using the standard trap set, Drake has collaborated extensively with top free jazz improvisers.

Drake also has performed world music; by the late 1970s, he was a member of Foday Musa Suso's Mandingo Griot Society[1] and has played reggae throughout his career.

[2] Drake has worked with trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonists Pharoah Sanders, Fred Anderson, Archie Shepp and David Murray, and bassists Reggie Workman and William Parker (in many lineups).

There, he started playing with local rock and R&B bands, which eventually brought him to the attention of Fred Anderson, an older saxophonist who had also moved to Evanston from Monroe as a child decades earlier.

[3] At Anderson's workshops, a young Hamid met Douglas Ewart, George E. Lewis and other members of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

Drake has played and/or recorded with: Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Fred Anderson, Herbie Hancock, Archie Shepp, bassist William Parker (in many lineups), Reggie Workman, Yusef Lateef, Wayne Shorter, Bill Laswell, David Murray, Joe Morris, Evan Parker, Paolo Angeli, Peter Brötzmann, Jim Pepper, Roy Campbell, Matthew Shipp, Sabir Mateen, Rob Brown, Mat Walerian, Marilyn Crispell, Johnny Dyani, Dewey Redman, Joe McPhee, Adam Rudolph, Hassan Hakmoun, Joseph Jarman, George E. Lewis, John Tchicai, Iva Bittová, Ken Vandermark, and almost all of the members of the AACM.

These diverse artists all play in a broad range of musical settings which allows Drake to comfortably adapt to north and west African and Indian impulses as well as reggae and Latin.