Big Sean scored the biggest hit of his career this summer, and he's preparing to conjure the creative energy that made "IDFWU" such a success for his upcoming album, Dark Sky Paradise. The GOOD Music rapper sat down with Complex to discuss his next moves. He touches on the "Control" phenomenon, revealing that while the song was cut from Hall Of Fame due to sample clearance issues, he felt the "negative" vibe of the song didn't match the feel of his album anyway. He also gets into his breakup with Naya Rivera, his inspiring new relationship with Ariana Grande, and the dispiriting news of the Eric Garner verdict.
Check out the cover in the gallery above, and some choice quotes from the interview below. Read the full piece over at Complex.
On "Control":
Looking back on it, it was a different vibe than my album. There’s a lot of negativity on that song, and I don’t fuck with negative shit. People love drama, people love bullshit. I knew when Kendrick did that name-dropping that it was just gonna set it off, and I could see why people gravitated towards that verse for that reason. I respected him for thinking of that. I never wanna shade anybody. I would’ve been a ho-ass nigga if I cut that out of his verse, or if I didn’t put the song out.
On Naya Rivera's claim he stole a Rolex from her:
First of all, why would I have to steal a Rolex? Second of all, every Rolex that I have, I have receipts for, papers for, certificates of authenticity for. I would never steal a Rolex from anybody. You see that tweet got deleted in like 20 seconds. You can come to that conclusion yourself if you just look at the facts. I felt like it was unnecessary drama ‘cause in my eyes it wasn’t true. I wasn’t surprised by it. Even though I didn’t steal anything, I wasn’t surprised by it.
On dating Ariana Grande:
We started as friends. I’d never done that. Usually you meet a girl and then start dating. We always saw each other in the studio, and we’d talk about songs we were working on. It was cool to have a girl that I could talk to about my problems. I did that with her. It’s not some fake-ass, inauthentic shit when I say we were friends. This is something special and I appreciate every moment of it.
On the Eric Garner verdict:
It don’t even surprise me. It’s sad. It is a racial thing, but the fact that the law can get away with this is sad. That you can kill somebody on camera. It’s been happening. It’s so wrong, on an ethics level, on a racial level, on so many levels. It brought my spirits down yesterday when I heard about Eric Garner. I didn’t even tweet about it. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t.