The MC explains how Kanye West came to direct his video for “Best I Ever Had.”
This is what Drake-mania looks like up close: It’s just after 10 p.m. on a balmy Tuesday night in May and downstairs inside the cramped confines of New York venue SOBs, Drake is receiving what feels like a hero’s welcome. Kanye West, Ryan Leslie, Talib Kweli, the Alchemist and Bun B (who’ll later join the upstart MC onstage) are all here to acknowledge the much-hyped rapper before his performance, Drake’s last before he’ll officially begin work on his debut LP, Thank Me Later.
Upstairs it’s more of the same. The rap media cognoscenti are all present, as are the executives who have been bidding for Drake’s services, including a high-ranking Universal/Motown chief and Warner Music Group Chairman Lyor Cohen. And don’t forget the girls. Soon-to-be shrieking girls are lining up just in front of the stage, ready to scream at a moment’s notice. It’s hard to believe it, but tonight’s performance is a part of the New York radio station Hot 97’s Who’s Next showcase. It’s not even a proper Drake concert.
“I’m a new artist, by the way,” a cheeky Drake told the packed house when he finally made it onto the stage in designer duds, a striped Commes des Garçons shirt and crimson Nike Air Jordans. “I don’t know if you can tell by this show.”
Just one month earlier, Drake (born Aubrey Graham), was another buzzed-about rapper on hip-hop blogs, in the class of Asher Roth and Kid Cudi, but not among the newcomers picked for XXL magazine’s “Freshman 10″ cover last December. His mixtape, So Far Gone, released in February of this year was critically lauded for its mix of melody and deft lyricism. But some derided the work as a knockoff of West’s 808s & Heartbreak due to Drake’s crooning and female-flavored numbers.
But then the Toronto rapper blitzed through the Big Apple last month — performing at a local college, making a club appearance with Cam’ron and doing interviews on the radio with Power 105’s DJ Clue and Hot 97’s Angie Martinez. He also freestyled on Funkmaster Flex’s show: “I’m in the Aston doing donuts/I will kill the game and never send it my condolensce/ taught to never love the chick and only love the moments/ New York City I can tell the people want it,” he furiously spit over the instrumental to Jay-Z’s “You, Me, Him, And Her.”
“That was probably, to be honest, the first time in a long time I was nervous,” Drake says now, recalling the moment. “I don’t get nervous for much. But it was like the first time I was like, ‘Wow, this is a legendary moment and a legendary opportunity that I’m being given.’ It was crazy to be standing in the Hot 97 radio room looking at Flex in the booth. Doing what I seen him do for so many years, for some of the greatest artist to ever be in this business. And to think it was just me there and it was all happening for me, it was definitely … Surreal is the word.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/28536457/drakes_big_break_lil_waynes_protege_graduates_from_degrassi_to_hiphop
