Hip-Hop heavyweight Drake features on the cover of the September issue of Paper magazine. In his accompanying feature, the Young Money star touches upon a number of topics, including his looks, negative blog comments, overexposure and more. An interesting read.
His comments after the jump…{spotted over at The YBF}
On negative blog comments:
“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 his music drawing fans instead of his looks:
“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 playing President 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 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 some 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”
Drake certainly deserves kudos for being a much-needed breath of fresh air on the Hip-Hop scene (both musically and with his perspectives). However, his comments pertaining to blogs – while baring some truth – seem a little uninformed. Drake, much like the majority music industry, seem to neglect the fact that the ‘blogs’ are the best focus group (researching platform) they could ever ask for. Yes, there will always be a fair amount of smack-talking, but where else can labels, managers, and artists themselves, get a direct feel for what the very consumers who purchase music are liking and disliking? The internet no doubt has its pro’s and con’s, yet the sooner the industry embraces the many ways they can use it to their advantage the better.