splodge interject: Drake Makes His Best Records When He Feels Small

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Drake Makes His Best Records When He Feels Small

'That made for some of the best music, I think, to date. Records where I felt small,' Drake tells GQ in April cover story.
By Rob Markman

Drake in <i>GQ</i>
Photo: GQ

It seems as if Drake is experiencing a bit of growing pains. On his 2009 Trey Songz-assisted single "Successful," the then-burgeoning star rapped about his yearn for the spotlight, and now that he has it, he's having a bit of difficulty adjusting, he tells GQ Magazine.

"I'm trying to find the same feelings that I had for women when I had very little going on, which is tough. When I was in my mom's house, I had nowhere to go, no real obligations," he tells GQ, where he appears as one of three cover subjects for their April issue, which hits stands March 20. "My girlfriend at the time, if she was mad at me, my day was all f---ed up. I didn't have anything else. And that made for some of the best music, I think, to date. Records where I felt small. ... It's really difficult for me to find something that makes me feel small."

That type of accelerated growth is a subject that Drake explores thoroughly on his latest album, Take Care. While the Young Money star hoped that he would achieve the level of fame that he has now, the reality of his stardom is at times daunting. "It was a world that was very much real to me, but I created it in my mind. It was a world that, being a kid from Toronto, I used to look at from the outside and I used to be like, 'Man that looks crazy,' " he told MTV News in an October 2011 interview a month before his now-platinum sophomore album dropped. "All those strip clubs and all those nightclubs and the drinks and the girls and the fame.

"That's who's sitting on that album cover, that kid that's just somehow gone from his mom's basement in Toronto to becoming a king."

For the interview, Drake gave writer Claire Hoffman a tour of the Hidden Hills, California, mansion in which he now resides. There were waterfalls, Drizzy's password-protected bedroom and the 1984 teeny-bopper classic "Sixteen Candles" playing on the flat-screen. The scene was perfectly set for the lovelorn rap star to talk about affairs of the heart.

"There's just a time where it was like, just getting pu---. Where I was in that sort of 'I'm young, I'm going to disconnect from my emotions and just do what everyone else tells me I should do and just a be a rapper and have my fun.' And for me as a person, it just doesn't work," he said candidly. "The seconds after a man reaches climax, that's the realest moment of your life. If I don't want you next to me in that fifteen, twenty seconds, then there's something wrong."

What do you feel are some of Drake's best records? Tell us in the comments!

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