The Weeknd's decision not to sign with OVO fueled rumors that there was bad blood between him and Drake. But in a new interview with Beats 1, he showed respect towards his old collaborator, and didn't rule out the possibility of a collaborative project between them in the future.
“He came in as my big bro and showed the world what I could do,” The Weeknd said. “From then on, he’s always been supporting me and I’ve always been supporting him. Behind the scenes, we’re still very close but it’s cool that the world can see us doing our own thing. OVOXO will always be there."
“It’s cool to have both monsters work together as opposed to one monster and one little guy coming in,” he added. “It’s dope, like Kanye and Jay Z, when [Watch the Throne] happened.”
When asked about the prospect of a full-length Weeknd-Drake project, he simply said, “Maybe. Why not?”
The Weeknd spoke on the difficulty of working on Drake's Take Care, on which he has five writing credits. “I gave up almost half of my album,” he said. “It’s hard. I will always be thankful—if it wasn’t for the light he shined on me, who knows where I’d be. And everything happens for a reason. You never know what I would say if this success wasn’t in front of me now.”
“He’s the homie," he concluded. "At the end of the day, that’s my guy. Oliver, 40, all of Toronto. There wouldn’t be any new artists from there if it wasn’t for Drake making Toronto cool because it wasn’t cool. Let’s be honest. Canada wasn’t ever cool.”
The feeling is mutual; this morning, Drake encouraged his fans to buy Starboy on his Instagram page. “Out now,” he wrote. “Congrats @theweeknd and the whole XO man dem.”