This is cool, PaperMag’s Jozen Cummings let loose some extras from the Drake interview they did, which I will intertwine with (hilarious) pics from Drake and Lil’ Wayne’s ‘Miss Me’ videoshoot, courtesy of The Hottest Ishh. Check out after the jump.
On his music, not his looks, drawing fans:
It’s funny — the thing that I hear the least is ‘Drake makes bad music.’ People always have something to say about the way I look or the way I dress. People nitpick at my physical appearance more than my music, which is fine with me because when I look in the mirror, I know I’m not an unattractive person.
On finding the time to return to acting:
I have an extreme desire to get back into acting and I’ve been in conversations non-stop about what kind of projects I’m going to pick, who I’d like to work with and things of that nature. I really have to gauge it off of how well this album does and what the demand is for Drake after this album, and I’ve gotta see how much time I can afford to take off before people hear from me again. If people love Thank Me Later, then I’m going to keep it going. As crazy as that sounds, and as vulnerable as that sounds because it sounds like people are deciding my fate, it’s just me being honest with you. If… it’s unanimous that they’re over [Thank Me Later], then yeah, maybe I’ll have a little bit more time to act before I go back in and make another album. But I’m pretty confident in the music that I made. I think music will be commanding my life for the next little bit, and hopefully I can find a month or two months to film a movie.
On playing Obama:
I hope somebody makes a movie about Obama’s life soon because I could play him. That’s the goal [laughs]. I watch all the addresses. Anytime I see him on TV, I don’t change the channel, I definitely pay attention and listen to the inflections of his voice. If you ask anyone who knows me, I’m pretty good at impressions. Slowly but surely, I’m not in the study mode because nobody’s called me about anything, but I just pay attention so when the day comes I’m not scrambling to learn how to speak like him. I want to be involved in great film projects. I don’t want to do the basketball movie that everyone does. I don’t want to do the typical black film that everyone expects. I think that I have enough experience to actually be involved in a real meaty project full of substance.
On why he’s not concerned about overexposure:
Overexposure would be me in every single video, me on Twitter every single day, me ..having my hand in all these pots because I feel I’m hot. That’s overexposure. Overexposure isn’t when people love you too much and are excited. I hate when people confuse the two. I actually say no way more than I say yes to opportunities are presented to me.
On keeping calm:
I wake up and I’m scared to flip my phone over because I don’t know what songs have leaked or what girl has said what about me. I don’t let it show because I care too much about the people around me and I need them to feel like I’m solid. No matter how much I may be going crazy inside, I always keep my composure for the sake of the people around me.
On negative blog commenters:
I definitely haven’t said this before, but I stopped going on a computer. I have a problem where if I go read a hundred positive things about me and there’s one guy in there who says ‘I hate Drake’ that’s the one I pay attention to. I think that’s a common problem. Negativity hurts us more than positivity helps us. I asked about 10 or 20 people around me, ‘When’s the last time you went on a website and commented on something, like a song dropped and you went on and said, ‘That song is hot’ or ‘That song is terrible?’ And everyone I asked around me, whose opinions I respect, the people I love, were like, ‘I’ve never done that before.’ And these are all level-headed, intelligent people whose opinion I respect, so I just started saying to myself, ‘It takes a certain type of individual to really participate in a group discussion about someone else, especially if they’re going super hard with consistent hate.
On how he honors his mentor, Andre 3000 from Outkast:
I have a shrine in my apartment dedicated to Andre. I took a door off a barn and had an artist take the lyrics from his verses [and put them] on this barn door. As soon as you walk into my apartment that’s the first thing you see.
