In a new cover interview with The Fader, Drake semi-spoke on the ghost-writing allegations that have plagued him in recent months. “I need, sometimes, individuals to spark an idea so that I can take off running,” he told the music magazine. “I don’t mind that. And those recordings [the demos that leaked and suggested he was using other writers]—they are what they are. And you can use your own judgment on what they mean to you.”
He pushed the idea that modern popular music is all about working with talented teams (see Rihanna, Beyoncé and Britney). “It’s just, music at times can be a collaborative process, you know? Who came up with this, who came up with that—for me, it’s like, I know that it takes me to execute every single thing that I’ve done up until this point. And I’m not ashamed.” It feels like a partial admission, but the rapper is more skirting around the issue as he mused, “I don’t know if I’m really here to even clarify it for you…If I have to be the vessel for this conversation to be brought up—you know, God forbid we start talking about writing and references and who takes what from where—I’m OK with it being me.” The “God forbid” also seems to be a veiled threat to other hip hop stars he must know who are ripping raps off other writers.
In the extensive interview, he also said how he’s loving being behind the wheel again after years of being chauffeur-driven (“Riding to the studio with a driver and security and stuff, you lose something…Driving was just one of the most pivotal things in my writing life”), how proud he is of making an anthem for his home town (“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, Know Yourself was a big thing off my checklist.”) and how Skepta has become a buddy (“we were brothers immediately. You don’t get that too much in this thing that we’re in, honestly. You don’t [often] meet somebody and actually feel like, ‘OK, we might actually still talk when we’re 35, 40 years old.'”).
And if those Serena rumors are to be believed, then the tennis player might have to accept playing second fiddle to his writing, as he admits, “The hardest moments, the most difficult ones, in songwriting, are when you’re looking for like, four words with the right melody and the right cadence. I pray for that. I’ll take that over anything—I’ll take that over sex, partying. Give me that feeling.”