Drake has been all over the site for the past week as he does interview on top of interview to promote his new album, Nothing Was The Same, turning it into a veritable DrakeWeek on just about every blog. One of the more anticipated interviews was his sit-down with Elliott Wilson for the CRWN series. The latter half of the interview dropped today, and in it Drizzy discusses in more detail three particular records off his new album. Drake even gets his not-often-heard producer, Noah '40' Shebib, to come out to say hi and talk about what it's like to work with the rapper.
We already heard that "Pound Cake" was intended for Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail album, but in the interview Drake shares more details on how he got the song for himself.
"'Pound Cake' happened while I was working with Beyonce," he explained to Elliott, "and then Jay was playing me Magna Carta, and he had a song that he played me with those verses on it... I had the nerve to ask Jay if I could not only get that song from him but get the acapella, 'cause I had an idea for it. And Jay is such a supportive person as far as my career goes and such a great guy that for the first time, I think in his career, he sent me two verses acapella."
As for his lead single off NWTS, "Hold, On We're Going Home" Drake admitted to having some nerves before releasing it to the world, and said that's why he dropped "All Me" first-- he wanted to remind people, he can still rap. On where the inspiration to create a track like "Hold On" came from, Drake explained,
"I hear my dad or my mom reminisce on music and be like, "Man, that was my song." And I was just like, man, what are people going to say? What's going to be the song that you dance to at your wedding? There's a couple joints, but I couldn't think of that many. What are going to be those songs that age extremely well, that are timeless music? And then I started being like, "I want one of those!" 40 found this incredible group, Majid Jordan, and they're about to blow the world away. They had this little demo idea that was an incredible, sort of scratch vocals with that beat. I came up with "just hold on, we're going home" because I saw it somewhere and thought it would be a great hook... We did it one night."
Finally, the interview touched on another track which left a lasting impression on fans, "Too Much." Before the Toronto native premiered the song on Jimmy Fallon he aired a disclaimer, which he explained the reason for.
"For the first time, my mom was really upset with me," Drake said of when he initially played the record for his mother. "She was upset because she felt like it warranted a personal conversation before I went and said that in a song. What I had to remind her of was that we had had this personal conversation many times over and I felt like it wasn't going anywhere. It was sitting on my chest so heavy that one night, when I had that second verse to finish, it just all... It was a huge release. I don't even think I've ever felt like that before. I wasn't even writing it down, and I'm not saying that to sound cool. I was just in the booth running in and out going line by line, because thoughts were going through my mind so fast."
Drake continued, "You know, I've gotten hit up by girls before who feel like they've been mis-mentioned in a song and I don't do it out of malice. I don't try and exploit the people in my life. If you listen to my music, it's not like [that]... I don't out people. I do tell my story, though. And any girl that I mention, she loves it anyway. That being said, I gave that disclaimer on TV because I knew my mother would be watching. And since I chose to communicate that message to her publicly, I wanted to also communicate another message publicly, which was, "I love you. I love you with all of my heart, and I want the best for you. I didn't want to make the world think you're just some woman that's just hiding out, but at the end of the day, I want a lot more for my mother. She's 66 and that scares me, you know? I'm 26 years old. Life is not guaranteed. It does not last forever. I want her to start feeling better and get on a plane and go wherever she wants to go and see the world and come to the CRWNs and the first concerts, and she doesn't do that. She stays where she's at, and it does bother me. I gave that disclaimer because I felt partly guilty, and I wanted my mother to know how much I love her in front of the whole world."