
The summer of 2015 ended the moment Serena Williams lost in the semifinals of the U.S. Open, and in the stands, watching it happen, was Drake. He had come to cheer for Serena amid rumors that the two were dating, and he spent most of the match on his feet, clapping with vigor and making intense faces that were projected onto TV screens all over the world.
When the match ended, Drake became the receptacle for all the disbelief and disappointment that was provoked by Serenaâs stunning defeat. Within minutes, Twitter alighted with jokes about the âDrake curse,â and soon the hashtag #BlameDrake was trending all over the United States.
Maybe it would have happened to whomever Serena Williams was supposedly dating at the timeâwith a historic Grand Slam on the line, the stakes were high, and the need for a scapegoat was profound. But something about the hostility Drake faced after the match felt tailor-made for Aubrey Graham, and not unrelated to the summer-long winning streak he had been enjoying at the time of Serenaâs loss. The reaction confirmed what had already started to become obvious: that Drake, a rapper who was once best known for being a Canadian child star working in a genre where he didnât quite fit in, was no longer any kind of underdog. Instead, he had become a target, the kind of cultural giant who inspires love and derision in equal measure.
On a balmy Tuesday night in August, about a month before that tennis match, Drake sits in a low-lit hotel suite in Toronto, his legs stretched out in front of him and his black Timberlands up on a coffee table. Holding what looks like a glass of Hennessy dressed with huge ice cubes at his side, heâs talking about how he recently started driving himself places again.
âIâve been deprived of driving for a long time,â he says. âRiding to the studio with a driver and security and stuff, you lose something.â
It used to be that driving to the recording studio was when he would come up with ideas, Drake explains. Cutting it out of his life felt like leaving inspiration on the table.
âThat ride was my favorite thing in the world, you know?â he says. âAnd before that ride, it wasnât going to the studio, it was going to my girlâs house, or going wherever. Driving was just one of the most pivotal things in my writing life.â
Driving was how Drake put himself in the mindset of the people he imagined listening to him. When he was trying to figure out if a song was working, he would picture someone playing it in their car. âEspecially on this new record, I just want you to be able toâŠâ he trails off. âSometimes those drives are heavy, man, depending on what happened where you came from and whatâs about to happen where youâre going.â

The new record Drake is talking about is Views From the 6, so named after Toronto, the city that is his birthplace, his muse, and his cause. His reps say the LP doesnât have a release date yet but will be coming out âimminently,â and like every major release Drake has put out since his 2009 mixtape, So Far Gone, it will be released into a world where more people are paying attention to him than ever before. Starting with that first record, Drake has been leveling up continuously, and with the huge year he has just had, Views will represent the culmination of yet another growth spurt.
To recap: at the start of summer 2014, Drake posted a song called â0-100/The Catch Upâ on his SoundCloud page and watched it turn into a runaway hit with barely any official promotion. Then, in February, he released a surprise mixtape called If Youâre Reading This Itâs Too Late, which was comprised of 17 songs that, at one point, all appeared on Billboardâs 50-song Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart simultaneously. Six even newer tracksâtwo of which Drake premiered on the Apple Music radio show that his label, OVO Sound, began hosting this summer as part of a reported $19 million dealâsubsequently sneaked into the Hot 100. As we sit down to talk, the only remaining trace of the recent turbulence Drake experienced during an unexpected clash with Meek Mill is a Top 40 hit in the form of âBack to Back,â a diss track Drake released in the midst of the conflagration. And to cap it off, one week after our interview, heâll fly to Atlanta to record a mixtape with Future called What a Time to Be Alive, which will go on to sell a projected half-million copies in its opening week.
I ask him, as he takes a slow sip of his drink, whether in light of his recent triumphs, he worries at all that heâs had it too easyâwhether thereâs any risk that heâll start taking for granted his ability to connect with listeners.
He sounds frankly disgusted with the idea. âIâve never felt like, âOh, people will bite at anything thatâs Drake,ââ he says. âIâm just not that guy. I donât feel that way about any of my music⊠If it didnât connect, I would have a huge problem.â
He pauses for a second, then continues, leaning into every word: âI mean, Iâm really trying. Itâs not like Iâm just sitting here, just fuckinâ shooting with my eyes closed. Like, Iâm trying. Iâm really trying to make music for your life.â
As he says this, Drake projects a practiced but convincing friendliness, and the effort heâs putting into making sure I know heâs being sincere is palpable and disarming. Still, looking at his newly close-shaved hair and the beard that now covers the lower half of his face like armor, I remember the advice he gave recently on one of his songsâPlease do not speak to me like Iâm that Drake from four years ago/ Iâm at a higher placeâand make a point of taking it.
This will be the first extended interview Drake has given since Rolling Stone published a story in February of 2014 that moved him to declare on Twitter that he would no longer be talking to magazines. Itâs also the first time he has opened himself up to questions about a set of recordings that leaked this summer: so-called reference tracks for songs off If Youâre Reading This that suggested Drake had based at least some of his verses on demos composed for him by other people.
By the time weâre done talking, Drake will have addressed those recordings, and opened a window onto the superpowers that allow him, more than almost anyone else in pop, to make music that is new and unfamiliar, but still deeply, widely, and reliably resonant. In the process, he will make a spirited case for collaboration in hip-hop, and put forth a vision of what it takes to make truly original and era-defining art.

âI know everything. I know everything thatâs being said about you. I know everything thatâs being said about me. Iâm very in tune with this life.â
For most of the year, Drakeâs focus has been on Views From the 6. Undertaking the high-stakes project, he tells me, required him to hunker down in Toronto in a way he hadnât really done in a while. After years of constant touring, sneaking in recording sessions whenever he could, and treating Los Angeles as his headquarters, Drake came home and locked in with his longtime engineer and producer, Noah â40â Shebib, the man he forged his sound with, and the friend who has been his closest creative partner since the beginning.
The choice to stay local while working on Views was a response to growing up: at 28, Drake says, he has realized that some of his best friends may no longer be at a point in their lives to âchase me around the globe anymore.â Drake and 40, in particular, have had to renegotiate the terms of their partnership. âWeâve grown a lot over the years,â Drake says. âHe used to be the guy that would track me in hotel rooms at 4 a.m. And now he is not that guyâI have another guy that does that.â
He needed 40 for Views, though, he says. âIf I want to make the album I want to make, I have to go find him. I have to go sit with him, and we have to really put in effort.â
Itâs a marked contrast from the way Drake made What a Time to Be Aliveâhe and Future recorded it in just six days in Atlanta, working at night, sleeping in the studio, then waking up and working some more, according to Metro Boomin, the tapeâs executive producerâand If Youâre Reading This Itâs Too Late, which was also completed relatively quickly, in three months, and was dominated by beats from Boi-1da and Vinylz. âThat was really just me doing one song at a time and just organizing them in an order that I thought sounded really good,â he says of If Youâre Reading This. âIt was like an offeringâthatâs what it was. It was just an offering. I just wanted you to have something to start the year off. I wanted to be the first one. I wanted to set it off properly.â
The day before our interview, word came that If Youâre Reading This had gone platinum. It was an unbelievable achievement, given that the project came out with no warning and no official single, and that Drake made a point of describing it as a mixtape rather than a proper album. The message seemed to be that it stood apart from the rest of Drakeâs catalogueâthat it was somehow a lesser work than his proper LPs. When I tell Drake that the tape sounded as cohesive to me as any ârealâ album I heard this year, he says, âI appreciate the compliment,â but disagrees.
âBy the standard I hold myself and 40 to, itâs a bit broken,â he says. âThereâs corners cut, in the sense of fluidity and song transition, and just things that we spend weeks and months on that make our albums what they are.â
Perhaps not unlike the Future project, the tape was conceived as a palate cleanser, Drake saysâa wild sprint he wanted to get out of his system before turning to the marathon that would be Views. âIt was the set up to be able to return to working solely with 40, which is where Iâm at now,â he says, explaining that the new album has involved collaborating more intimately with 40 than he has since Take Care. âI just wanted to be able to come back to that and have it be important.â
Toronto to Los Angeles, September 2015
Photography by JJ








Recording Views From the 6 in Toronto has aligned nicely with the arrival of an intense new phase in Drakeâs campaign on behalf of his beloved city. That campaign has been going on for years, but the portrait Drake has been painting lately of âthe 6â has been more emphatic and textured than ever. It is no longer possible, as it once was, to mistake his local boosterism with a desire to just be from somewhere, nor confuse it with a vain aspiration to bring glory to a city with little pre-existing cachet.
It helps that Drake finally gave Toronto an anthem this year in âKnow Yourself,â the standout track on If Youâre Reading This that had teenagers and adults all over America chanting about ârunning through the 6â with their woes.
âI always used to be so envious, man, that Wiz Khalifa had that song âBlack and Yellow,â and it was just a song about Pittsburgh,â Drake says. âLike, the world was singing a song about Pittsburgh! And I was just so baffled, as a songwriter, at how you stumbled upon a hit record about Pittsburgh. Like, your city must be elated! They must be so proud. And I told myself, over the duration of my career, I would definitely have a song that strictly belonged to Toronto but that the world embraced. So, âKnow Yourselfâ was a big thing off my checklist.â
What distinguishes Drakeâs devotion to Toronto from generic hometown pride is that it comes across as the opposite of provincial. This is a testament to Torontoâs unique cultural diversity: the cityâs population is about 50 percent foreign born, with immigrant communities from countries like Jamaica, the Philippines, India, and many others. To be influenced by Toronto, in other words, is to be influenced by cultures from all over the world.
Drake has been channeling those diverse inputs with great enthusiasm lately, most obviously in his use of Toronto-by-way-of-the-Caribbean slang (ting, touching road, talkinâ boasy and gwaninâ wassy) and even religious Arabic words like mashallah and wallahi, a wink to Torontoâs Somali population. âWe use [that lingo] every day,â he says, âbut it just took me some time to build up the confidence to figure out how to incorporate it into songs. And Iâm really happy that I did. I think itâs important for the city to feel like they have a real presence out there.â
The fact that Drakeâs not at all worried about alienating non-Toronto fans who donât know what certain words mean is arguably the true measure of his tire pressure right now. And insofar as he is making Toronto more of an ever-present, fleshed-out character in his music than he used to, itâs because he knows he has the standing to do so. âIâve just become really adamant about leaving fragments in everything I do that belong strictly to my city,â he says. âThe world will pick up on it.â
Though some might see his use of slang as tourism or even appropriation, Drake has forged real-life relationships with artists from scenes based abroad whose influence is felt in Toronto. His admiration for Popcaan, the Jamaican dancehall star, has given rise to an alliance between OVO and Popcaanâs Unruly Gang that resulted in a 22-minute documentary about the OVO team visiting Unruly in Jamaica; later, the patois spoken in that film ended up serving as the source material for dialogue that appeared on If Youâre Reading This.
Drakeâs interest in the music of London grime MC Skepta, meanwhile, has given him the rare gift of a true companionânot an insignificant thing for the rapper who once proclaimed a âno new friendsâ policy as a way of dealing with newfound fame. âI was a Skepta fan, but after meeting Skepta⊠we were brothers immediately,â Drake says. âYou donât get that too much in this thing that weâre in, honestly. You donât [often] meet somebody and actually feel like, âOK, we might actually still talk when weâre 35, 40 years old.ââ
Through these affiliations and collaborationsâthere was also a song with Bachata star Romeo Santos in which Drake sang in SpanishâDrake has become a kind of cultural importer-exporter, or perhaps more accurately, a translator.

âI just want to be remembered as somebody who was himself. Not a product.â
I ask him if part of the motivation behind his international outreach is a desire to build audiences in foreign marketsâto become a truly global star, having already conquered North America as much as any rapper ever has. On some level, I ask, is doing a song like this summerâs âOjuelegba (Remix),â which he recorded with Skepta over a hit single by the popular Nigerian rapper Wizkid, a savvy play for audience share?
Drake is not into this theory. âI just did it because I was in the moment,â he says. âI wasnât thinking like, âOh man, I gotta get my brand up in Nigeria.ââ (He hastens to add, with classic Drake politeness, âNot to say thatâs not important. Iâm super-honored to be on that song.â)
More than erecting a global tentpole brand, it seems Drake is reaching out for inspiration and new ideas about how a Drake song can sound. On What a Time to Be Alive, you can hear him trying to level with Future as he battles his sorrows with pills and lean, but much of Drakeâs other recent output finds him working through influences that actually seem to have brightened him up musicallyâan almost unthinkable turn of events for an artist whose aesthetic has long been described as cold and wintery. New songs like the tropical-sounding âHotline Blingâ have a gorgeous-sunset quality to them that Drake hasnât really conjured before; to borrow a metaphor from Lorde, who praised âHotline Blingâ on Twitter recently for its pristine yet evocative simplicity, he is painting with colorsâreds, oranges, pinksâhe didnât really used to use.
Drake says this new warmth is not an accidentâthat heâs making a point of rapping over beats that are a little sunnier than heâs accustomed to in order to see if he can match the level of potency he knows he can achieve when working inside his gauzy, minor-key comfort zone.
âI love dancehall flows, especially as of late,â he says. âI pretty much wonât even rap on a beat unless itâs got some magic element of new tempo or new pocket, where I hear myself and feel like Iâve stumbled upon something new.â
This is Drakeâs primary and somewhat paradoxical objective these days: to stumble upon something new, whether itâs a new way to blur the line between singing and rapping or just a new way to render a phrase. âThereâs times where Iâm sitting around looking for like, three, four words,â he says. âIâm not looking for, like, 80 bars on some â5AM,â âParis Mortonâ-type shit, you know? There are moments like that, too, but the hardest moments, the most difficult ones, in songwriting, are when youâre looking for like, four words with the right melody and the right cadence. I pray for that. Iâll take that over anythingâIâll take that over sex, partying. Give me that feeling.â
The best feeling of all, he says, is when he finds a whole new flowâa new way to straddle a beat and wrap his vocals around a rhythm in an unexpected way.
âA new flow is absolutely the most crucial discovery in rap, to me,â Drake says. âHonestly, like, I love that Iâm sitting here talking to you, but at the same time I donât, because I want to go to the studio, and Iâm praying that 40 has a beat, so that I can do something new that Iâve never done before. That is my main joy in life.â

Thereâs a moment on âOjuelegba (Remix)â in which that joy comes through as clearly as it ever has. The breezy, boisterous song, which Drake first heard through Skepta, forces Drake to rap in a way heâs never rapped before, to the extent that it takes him a couple of bars to find the swing of the beat. As soon as he does find it (it happens right as heâs singing Pree me, dem a pree me, Jamaican patois for âtheyâre watching meâ) his vocals and the music click into place, and suddenly the song sounds like it could be a stateside hit.
In that moment Drake reveals one of his most consequential talents: his intuitive ability to bend the newâand thus not-quite-intelligibleâinto shapes that make sense to millions and millions of people.
Weâll call this his first superpower, and what it allows Drake to do is take idiosyncratic songs that havenât caught all the way on yet and tune them to a frequency everyone can hear. Most famously, he did this with the Migos flow on his remix of their hit âVersaceâ and the froggy iLoveMakonnen croon on âTuesday.â More recently, he did it on âSweeterman (Remix),â which was originally recorded and released by a 21-year-old from Toronto of Egyptian descent who calls himself Ramriddlz. More of a cover than a remix, Drakeâs version of âSweetermanâ captured him in full-on sponge mode, borrowing all of the originalâs best featuresâthe tiny melody behind she keeps giving me looks, the word adunana-neâand tightening them up, while removing Ramriddlzâs voice entirely.
In recording his take on âSweeterman,â Drake did something he has done repeatedly throughout his career, latching onto a set of charming but off-kilter ideas, running them through his proprietary filter, and shining them down into jewels. By applying his populist instincts to genuinely weird music, Drake has learned new moves, and in exchange for giving up-and-comers the invaluable boost that accompanies his co-sign, he has had the opportunity to introduce one new sound after another into the mainstream. Itâs an innovation model, basically: as an artist who is single-mindedly focused on improving and not repeating himself, Drake is serious about staying ahead of the curve, and he approaches it systematically.
When I ask him what makes him want to jump on a song like âSweeterman,â Drake says something surprising. âItâs just channeling my mom,â he says. âLike, Iâd bring home an essay that I did really well on, and my mom would read it through and give me notes backâon the essay that I just scored like 94 on! So sometimes I just do that. Iâll hear peopleâs stuff and⊠Iâll just give my interpretation of how I would have done it.â
Thatâs not meant to be taken offensively, he adds: âItâs just, literally, Iâve recognized the potential and the greatness in this piece, and I want to take my stab at it tooâwhich is kind of what my mom always did, you know? She was just reliving her school days. Like, she just wanted to really write the essay herself. But I had already done it, so she just kind of gave me new paragraphs and sentences and made it better.â
What Drake is describing here, it seems, is craftsmanship and perfectionism. But while those are obviously crucial factors of his success, they wouldnât count for all that much on their own.
Which is where Drakeâs second superpower comes in.
âMusic at times can be a collaborative process, you know? Who came up with this, who came up with thatâfor me, itâs like, I know that it takes me to execute every single thing that Iâve done up until this point. And Iâm not ashamed.â
You could call it his emotional imagination. But in fact itâs something more specific: a gift for understanding his fans and intuitively knowing how to activate, and lay claim to, their feelings. Drake is an interpreter, in other words, of the people he is trying to reachâan artist who can write lyrics that wide swaths of listeners will want to take ownership of and hooks that we will all want to sing to ourselves as we walk down the street.
When I ask Drake about how he gets audiences to identify with him in this way, especially now that his life is so extraordinary and strange, he sits up and lays out the elemental chemistry of his music.
âWe may be worlds apart in the sense of, you know, where youâre from, where Iâm from, what Iâm doing, what youâre doingâbut what are we talking about?â he says. âWeâre talking about very simple human emotions. Weâre talking about love, sometimes. Weâre talking about triumph, weâre talking about failure, weâre talking about nerves. Weâre talking about fear. Weâre talking about doubt. It doesnât matter what youâre doingâyou gotta at least hear what Iâm saying to you. And I pray that it helps.â
At this he interrupts himself. âNot even âhelps,ââ he says. ââHelpsâ is a weird word. I donât ever want to think Iâm âhelping.â Itâs not about helping. Itâs more like, even though weâre not carrying on a dialogue, I hear you, you know? And when I make an album, all I want you to know is I hear you.â
You can tell heâs thinking this through as he says it, and as he goes on, it feels kind of like watching someone earnestly arrive at a mission statement on the fly: âLike, I get everything,â he says. âI know everything. I know everything thatâs being said about you. I know everything thatâs being said about me. Iâm very in tune with this life. Much like, I assume, most of my listeners are.â
In this light, listening to Drakeâs songsâloving them, internalizing them, feeling #chargedup when you feel like taking a swing at somebody and #worstbehaviour when youâre amped at a partyâis a collaborative process between artist and fan. Drake writes songs that encourage that intimacy, and in so doing he consistently finds words for yearnings and aspirations shared by his wildly diverse fanbase. In making hits, he is gifting his listeners those words so that they might express themselvesâonline, at school, at work, in their own headsâwith the benefit of his verve.
On some level, Drakeâs ability to do this comes down to his ear for catchy, evocative phrases that are vague enough to be used across many contexts, but specific enough to still feel vivid and personal. But heâs also just good at reading his momentâfiguring out what his fans want at any given time and delivering it on schedule.
This sense of timing turned out to be a crucial weapon for Drake this summer when he was pulled into the battle with Meek Mill. Though Drake initially seemed to ignore the surprise attack, it quickly turned into a two-week long demonstration of his skills as an entertainer and his ability to execute on them. In more dramatic fashion than ever, Drake flexed his showmanship, and made fluent use of all the communication channels that are open between him and his fans.

The conflict started when Meek Mill asserted on Twitter that Drake had someone else write his lyrics for him on a verse he had recorded for Meekâs recent album. It escalated when Hot 97 DJ Funkmaster Flex boasted that someone in Drakeâs camp had provided him with multiple âreference tracksââdemos, basically, written and recorded by other rappersâthat would prove that Drake made a habit of using outside writers.
Drake never spoke about the recordings directlyânot even after some of them were made public. But as I prepare to raise the issue during our interview, he catches me off guard by turning to it on his own.
âIâm just gonna bring it up âcause itâs important to me,â he says. âI was at a charity kickball gameâwhich we won, by the wayâand my brother called me. He was just like, âI donât know if youâre aware, but, yo, theyâre trying to end us out here. Theyâre just spreading, like, propaganda. Where are you? You need to come here.â So we all circled up at the studio, and sat there as Flex went on the air, and these guys flip-flopped [about how] they were gonna do this, that, and the third.â
He recorded âCharged Upâ that very night and released it the next day on the same episode of OVO Radio that saw the debut of âHotline Bling.â âGiven the circumstances, it felt right to just remind people what it is that I do,â Drake says, a proud smile creeping into his face, âin case your opinions were wavering at any point.â
When a reply to âCharged Upâ didnât come, Drake could hardly believe it. âThis is a discussion about music, and no oneâs putting forth any music?â he says, speaking with a furrowed brow, as if reliving his incredulity. âYou guys are gonna leave this for me to do? This is how you want to play it? You guys didnât think this through at allânobody? You guys have high-ranking members watching over you. Nobody told you that this was a bad idea, to engage in this and not have something? Youâre gonna engage in a conversation about writing music, and delivering music, with me? And not have anything to put forth on the table?â
As the days ticked by and a rebuttal from Meek Mill continued to not materialize, Drake became almost offended at the lack of hustle the other team was putting in. âIt was weighing heavy on me,â he says. âI didnât get it. I didnât get how there was no strategy on the opposite end. I just didnât understand. I didnât understand it because thatâs just not how we operate.â
It was then that he decided to just go ahead and do another song. âI was like, âIâm gonna probably just finish this.â And I know how I have to finish it. This has to literally become the song that people want to hear every single night, and itâs gonna be tough to exist during this summer when everybody wants to hear [this] song that isnât necessarily in your favor.â
That song became âBack to Back,â and in keeping with Drakeâs plan, it became an instant radio hit. In the end, Drake never felt compelled to prove his chops in some grand or gimmicky wayâby going on a radio show and freestyling, for instance, or putting pictures of his handwritten lyrics on Instagram. Instead he just acted like the leaked recordings didnât matter. And a few days later, with a performance at OVO Festâthe star-studded concert he puts on every year in Toronto that opened, this time around, with a full-on sendup of his challengerâthe whole thing was decisively over, with public opinion overwhelmingly on Drakeâs side.
The fact that most of Drakeâs fans seemed not to care about the particulars of how his songs were made proved something important: that Drake was no longer just operating as a popular rapper, but as a pop star, full stop, in a category with BeyoncĂ©, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, and the many boundary-pushing mainstream acts from the past that transcended their genres and reached positions of historic influence in culture. At that altitude, itâs well known that the vast majority of great songs are cooked in groups and workshopped before being brought to life by one singular talent. That is the altitude where Drake lives now.
âI need, sometimes, individuals to spark an idea so that I can take off running,â he says. âI donât mind that. And those recordingsâthey are what they are. And you can use your own judgment on what they mean to you.â
âThereâs not necessarily a context to them,â he adds, when I ask him to provide some. âAnd I donât know if Iâm really here to even clarify it for you.â
Instead, he tells me he is ready and willing to be the flashpoint for a debate about originality in hip-hop. âIf I have to be the vessel for this conversation to be brought upâyou know, God forbid we start talking about writing and references and who takes what from whereâIâm OK with it being me,â he says.
He then makes a bigger pointâone that sums up why the experience of being publicly targeted left him in a position of greater strength than he went into it with: âItâs just, music at times can be a collaborative process, you know? Who came up with this, who came up with thatâfor me, itâs like, I know that it takes me to execute every single thing that Iâve done up until this point. And Iâm not ashamed.â

The victory lap Drake has been on since ending the dispute with Meek Mill has been something to beholdâperformances of âBack to Backâ at concerts that had thousands of people shouting along with the words; the rise of âHotline Blingâ to the Billboard Top 10; the mixtape with Future that had rap fans losing their minds as soon it was rumored to be in the works. Itâs a run that testifies to the third and most important thing Drake has going for him: he makes it really, really fun to be a Drake fan.
Itâs fun to watch him get better at rapping. Itâs fun to follow along with the arc of his prosperity as he clears rungs that were once impossible to imagine him clearing. Now when he releases a song in which he debuts a new flowâor appears on stage at an Apple Music event, or hosts Saturday Night Live, or premieres something exciting on OVO Sound Radioâthere are people everywhere feeling happy for him, almost as if being on his team means they themselves have achieved something. (This good will can extend to Drakeâs collaborators, too: in an email, Future told The FADER, âDrake is my brother. We have a cool personal relationship, but we have an even better relationship musically,â and Metro Boomin, in a phone interview, recalled the nightly dance-offs that he, Drake, and everyone else involved in What a Time to Be Alive would have in the studio to mixtape-opener âDigital Dash.â After the sessions concluded, Metro said, Drake sent a custom Bape couch to his house for his 22nd birthday.)
Drakeâs relationship to his fans, and the mark he wants to leave on the world they live in, is something he has addressed more than once in his songs. Iâm on a mission trying to shift the culture, as he put it on âTuscan Leather.â Or, as he rapped on âFrom Time,â I want to take it deeper than money, pussy, vacation/ And influence a generation thatâs lacking in patience. When I ask Drake what it would mean to actually do those things, I half-expect him to say something about getting young people to realize that the internet is ruining their ability to lead authentic lives. Itâs a technophobic stance that he has hinted at beforeâeven as he has demonstrated, over and over, an utterly fluent understanding of digital culture and how to harness it. But instead of being preachy in response to my question, Drake once again brings up his parents.
Theyâre what he thinks about when he pictures his legacy, he saysâthe way his mom talks about the songs she listened to as a young woman on a memorable trip to Italy, or how his dad describes the first time he saw The Rolling Stones. âI just want to be a time-marker for my generation,â Drake says. âWhatever my generation isâIâm 28, but I feel like maybe thereâs kids right now, who are 16, that might still grow up with Drake.â
His choice of words here is revealing: Drake wants people to feel like theyâve grown up with him, like they know him and see him as a human being who is a part of their lives. âšâI watch other artists from the past in aweâin awe of the preparation it must have taken to, like, be that individualâthe grandiose production of [it],â he says. âAnd Iâve sort of gotten by just being myself.â
That, more than anything, Drake tells me, is the mark he hopes to leave: âI just want to be remembered as somebody who was himself,â he tells me. âNot a product.â
Itâs not a risk-free proposition. Because the truth is, people donât like it when their friends change, and since Drake is intent on evolving, itâs inevitable that some fans will start identifying less with him and more with the spurned allies and ex-girlfriends whom he describes in his pettiest songsâthe people in his life who resent him for drifting away from them or getting so big for his britches. The tough, guarded tone Drake took on If Youâre Reading This has undoubtedly cost him the loyalty of some who were attached to the softer kind of openness that he became famous forâand his growing dominance as a star surely contributes to the type of Twitter fury he faced during the U.S. Open, and the glee with which some critics declared What a Time to Be Alive would have been better as a solo Future project.
Drake has acknowledged that the change in him is real. In âYou & the 6,â the emotional centerpiece of If Youâre Reading This, he talks to his mom on the phone, trying to explain to her how his life is different now, and how people around him are trying to undermine him because of his status. âI canât be out here being vulnerable, mama,â he tells her.
As our interview wraps up, I ask Drake whether he actually feels that wayâand what he imagines he will be, in the Views From the 6 era and beyond, if he toughens up so much that he loses the approachability that has always distinguished him.
âItâs never about toughening up. I donât even know if thatâs, like, cool, being tough and shit,â he says. âNot being vulnerable is never gonna be my thing. Iâm always going to share with you whatâs going on in my life.â
What has changed, he explains, is that he doesnât have any doubts left about how good he is, or whether he deserves the spot he has fought to secure since emerging into the public consciousness six years ago as a beguiling, expressive misfit.
âVulnerability, to me, sometimes comes in the form of being naĂŻve about where I am in the pecking order of all this,â he says. âSo I think I realize where Iâm at now. And I think I realize that Iâm gonna have to be OK with not having that many friends that are peers.â
And with that, Drake is outâdone talking, and ready, at long last, to head to the studio, where he says he and 40 will be trying to wrap the third verse of a song they initially thought might work as the opener for Views, but now arenât so sure. Drake seems confident theyâll figure it out though. Heâs looking forward to doing the work.
Pre-order a copy of Drake's issue of The FADER now. It's our 100th issue, and it hits newsstands October 27th.
Photographed at the Crystal Ballroom and Vanity Fair Ballroom, OMNI King Edward hotel, Toronto.
Styling by Nicky Orenstein.