Via PaperMag.com: Though writer Jozen Cummings covered much about Drake in PAPER’s Summer Music Issue, on stands now, there were a few more extra tidbits from our interview with the red-hot hip-hop superstar that PAPERMAG thought we’d share with you. Read on for news about Drake’s return to acting, his plans to play Obama and keeping a safe distance from the Internet.

Drake on playing Barack Obama in a movie

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.

Drake on reading negative blog comments

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.

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In the summer of 2008, Lil Wayne, at the height of his dreadlocked, coughsyrup- guzzling Weezy-ness, invited Aubrey Drake Graham—part-time rapper and sweet-faced regular on Canada’s teen soap Degrassi: The Next Generation— to meet him in Houston.

“I waited for about three hours,” says Drake, who trimmed his name (and his ’fro) post-Degrassi. “Finally, someone was like, ‘Okay, Lil Wayne is ready.’ I walked onto his bus and he was getting these massive angel wings tattooed on his sides. It must have been painful, but he wasn’t showing it. We did some talking, but not much. And then, six or seven hours later, the bus just started moving. They were like, ‘Oh, you’re coming on tour with us.’”

Read the rest here.

Special feature on DRAKE – The most anticipated Hip-Hop album in years comes from a 23-year-old singing, acting, half-Jewsih Canadian who some are touting in the same breath as Biggie and Lil Wayne. Purchase Now!

XL just released some unpublished excerpts from Drake’s interview that didn’t make the cover story. Drake talks the difference between writing rap and writing R&B records, being bored with mixtapes and why he hates the way he looks in pictures, as well as a few other things. Read on below:

How many songs are on Thank Me Later?

Drake: It’ll probably end up being about 15. But it’s just, you know, I love doing R&B music, I really do. And I just always feel like to tie in hip-hop with R&B and to utilize R&B to glue it all together, that’s my trademark. That’s something that only I can do. And that’s why I will continue to do it. There might come a time where I might be like, “Yo, I just want to do an R&B mixtape, or I just want to do a whole [R&B] album,” but I don’t think so, man. I think that that is the makeup of me—melody and just the tone of my voice and all; I don’t think I could ever change that, so…

I’m waiting on the Drake Gangsta Grillz.

Drake: [Laughs] I just find that boring, you know. There’s certain people where it’s impressive, like with Lil Wayne, to hear him freestyling over other people’s beats for an hour is impressive because it’s just like, Yo, this guy never runs out of clever shit to say, but for me, people might want to hear it, but it’s just not something that I really want to give you. I’d rather just give you something that lasts a little longer than that ’cause those mixtapes never really last much longer than six months. When the songs become played out, and… [Read more →]

At just twenty-three, Canadian rapper Drake is already leagues ahead of those who’ve come before

Lil Wayne 2.0 seems like he was designed in a laboratory, so perfectly is he suited to be pop culture’s next superstar. He was born into music, writes and raps like his mentor, dresses up instead of down, and vaguely resembles a young Obama.

A word after a word after a word is money. For example: “I’m a Young Money millionaire, tougher than Nigerian hair. / My criteria compared to your career just isn’t fair.” That’s a bit of “A Milli,” one of six platinum- and multi-platinum-certified singles by Lil Wayne, the Louisiana rapper who coined the term “bling.” Last summer, Forbes magazine estimated his annual earnings at $18 million (US) — a recession-beating 38 percent rise over the year before. His 2008 album, Tha Carter III, has sold several million copies worldwide; its support tour, a nine-month bus ride bounded by shows in Miami, Montreal, Vancouver, and San Diego, grossed $42 million (US). [Read more →]

Don’t say it. We already know what half of you are thinking: Hell naw, that muthafucka? Yep. Aubrey “Drake” Graham, 23. That muthafucka. As in, that new hip-hop artist from Toronto. As in, the one who owned 2009 thanks to a little mixtape known as So Far Gone, hip-hop’s first instant-classic tape from a virtually unknown artist since Young Jeezy’s Trap or Die. As in, the one who landed in the middle of a major-label bidding war so closely watched that his ultimate signing to Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Motown made news in a way not seen since the day 50 Cent signed to Shady/Aftermath/Interscope. [Read more →]

In XXL’s forthcoming May Issue, senior editor Benjamin Meadows-Ingram asked the up-and-coming star if he thinks about the traditional XXL audience in terms of the type of music he creates.

“Yeah,” Drake said, “but I’ve never really voluntarily made myself a member of that lifestyle. I just make good music, and that’s really what it should be all about. Because a lot of the people that the XXL audience believes in aren’t even that official anyway, as far as rugged and rough. A lot of that stuff is perceived, it’s assumed, it’s not proven. And a lot of it gets embellished throughout the course of a career. As you get more famous, you can start saying more reckless shit, and people believe you.”

As far as MC nicknamed Young Angel is concerned, it all boils down to the sounds coming out of the speakers. “It’s never been about being perceived as a rapper [for me],” he explained. “I love making music, man. I love hearing people that love my music, or witnessing my music being played, and people enjoying it. I make the music, and I love the result of what happens after that. That’s pretty much where my involvement in hip-hop stops. I just want to make the music.”

“For anybody that doesn’t believe in me, your favorite rappers do,” he added. “They call me for hooks, features and all that. Ross, Jeezy, the hardest dudes—B.G. C-Murder calls me from jail. Turk calls me from jail to tell me I’m doing great. For the people that don’t believe, the people that you do believe in got love for me. That’s all that matters.”

Check out a photo of Drake by photographer Jonathan Mannion for XXL Magazine (on stands April 20th). If you are one of the lucky ones, you should have a fresh copy of the May 2010 issue of XXL Magazine waiting for you in your mailbox right now.

FADER.com is giving away an autographed copy of Drake’s Cover (Issue 63). All you have to do to enter is leave a comment here about why you are the biggest Drake fan in the universe, and who you think he should collaborate with next. Click here for more details.

Mr. Graham takes off the blazer loosens up the tie in his fashion spread in the March 2010 issue of GQ magazine. We see you Aubrey. More scans after the jump.

This is an scan from Drake’s GQ photoshoot with Wale and Kid Cudi for the GQ magazine’s Men of the Year issue. The photo all together has a content vibe. Drake is cheesing extra hard with that laugh. Be sure to cop the the December 2009 GQ issue when it hits the shelf!