Drake covers the Feb/March issue of Complex.
There’s a interesting interview with Drizzy that you should read.
He speaks on his knee injury, the Best I Ever Had Video. Drake also speaks on Lil Wayne, says J.Cole could be the new Nas if he plays his cards right.
You feel like you’re at the finish line?
Drake: I’m at the starting line. Those guys are at home, putting on their tracksuits, getting ready to make their attack. When J. Cole gets it super-right, I think he’s gonna have a place as a Nas-type character who really stands for hip-hop, but still makes ill records that everybody fucks with
Of all your contemporaries, it seems like you want to be famous the most.
Drake: That’s gonna change. When Cole’s sound is the new sound that everybody wants to hear, he’s gonna be like, “I wanna be as big as possible with this shit.” I didn’t jeopardize anything to be in the position I’m in. You’re listening to the shit that I believe in, not some shit I did because I needed to get here. People just happen to embrace my shit. That’s very rare—but I also think the younger generation appreciates that brand of music, so I think it’s possible for one of these guys to emerge and do exactly what I’m doing.
Does anybody in your extended team ever push you to be more…anything, I guess?Drake: Never. Nobody’s ever come to me and said, “Yo, you need to start rapping about this.” Not Sylvia [Rhone, president of Motown/executive VP of Universal], Wayne, Doug Morris [CEO of Universal]. Nobody’s ever said that to me in my life. I don’t think anybody could ever do that. I talk about my real life. That’s undeniable shit.
I think it’s just that you were so far from what people expected when they thought “Young Money.”
Drake: Everyone seems to have a comment for me about Young Money, “Fuck Young Money” or “Why are you with them?” But what people have to understand is maybe there was a way for me to be successful without Young Money. But we’ll never know. My loyalty is to Wayne, and that goes for anybody who genuinely believes in me. We don’t have the most personal relationship where we hang out every day or we talk that much, but Wayne’s admiration and respect goes without being verbally said. He put his neck out there for me at a very early stage, and those actions tell me everything I need to know about how he feels about me as an artist.
Take me through your songwriting process.
Drake: With R&B, I know my sound. I know I make records to fuck to.
[Laughs.]
Drake: The way Jay and Wayne write rap, I write R&B. I don’t write lyrics down on paper. The other day, I was in the studio with Alicia Keys, and I wrote two songs just speaking to her. I wish I could write that way for rap. With my rap songs, there’s so much of me I have to give that I don’t know if I could ever just flow. The thing is, I’m a great rapper. There’s two elements to rap: having the thoughts, and then being a great rapper. I can really rap the shit that I write. My tone, my inflection. When I listen to myself on records, I don’t feel like I don’t belong there. When I listen to “Forever,” with three of my heroes, I fit right in.
READ THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW HERE
