As Drake gears up to release his third studio album this summer, the ‘No New Friends‘ rapper conducted his first promo – interview with GQ magazine where talked candidly about his personal life, his ongoing beef with singer, Chris Brown, staying true to himself, and his legacy in music. Let’s start with Drake’s love life. Drake says that, despite “playboy” rap persona in his music lyrics – he is quite the opposite.
“You know the way fighters don’t f–k before the fight? –says Drake. Sometimes I feel like I’m so focused on training my body and getting my mind right to create this album that sex isn’t one of my main priorities,” he says. “If someone is around that I know and trust, I’m down. But I’m not going to end up with some stranger at this party.”
When asked about his past relationships and whether he’d been in love Drake says:
I had lunch the other day with someone I extremely look up to. Okay — I had lunch with Will Smith” he says. “Listening to him talk, it made me think I don’t know what love is.”[Smith] said love is when you become one and you need that person. It’s not about wanting anymore, you need that person. Hearing that, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way.”
Drake continues:
“I’ve made a lot of music about love being the only thing I’m missing,” he says. “I think this is the first album I’ve made saying, I’m okay. I’m enjoying it right now. Maybe this is my time to grind it out, make a run for it and add some memories with my boys.”
On his ongoing beef with Chris Brown stemming from their nightclub brawl back in December of 2012:
“I hear he has everything he could want now,” Drake says, alluding to the fact that Brown and Rihanna were, for the moment, back together. I don’t want my name to be synonymous with that guy’s name. I really don’t. I wish we could sit down, just like you and me are right now, and talk it out man-to-man. But that’s not going to happen. I’m not confrontational, but if someone challenges, I’m not going to back down.”
“It’s embarrassing, the amount of media coverage. Two rappers fighting over the woman. He’s not even a rapper, but still, it’s the last way you want your name out there. It distracts from the music. But he’s made me the enemy, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay, I guess…If I think about it too much, I feel it wrapping around my foot, like I get a feeling it could end really badly.”
“I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve told bits and pieces of it—and I’ll tell more. Maybe because I had friends who grew up in the hood, I could have acted like I had, too, and perpetrated a different lifestyle, and it would be eating away at me because it wouldn’t be the truth. I’m actually here in front of you living the truth. I wake up in the morning and my heart is light, man. It’s not heavy. I don’t have skeletons in the closet on their way out. This is my real age, my real name, my real past, and I’m good with that.”
Feel free to catch the full interview here