Rapper Drake covers the latest issue of JET Magazine hitting the stands Sept. 13. See the cover when you go inside and watch a video of Drake talking about the VMAs plus see what 50 Cent says about the alleged Floyd Mayweather assault…

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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.

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Look for this article in PAPER’s Summer 2010 music issue on newsstands June 21.

It may sound cliché, but Drake remembers October 31, 2009, like it was yesterday.

That was the night Drake knew his transformation from Aubrey Drake Graham — star of teen soap opera Degrassi: The Next Generation — to famous rapper had begun. That was the night Jay-Z performed in his hometown.

“Jay-Z coming to Toronto meant every single person was going to be there, which meant the majority of the people in my life were there,” the 23-year-old rapper recalls. “And there was a big rumor around the city: Is Drake close enough to Jay where he would bring me out? And people were like, ‘No, it would never happen.’”

Well, it did happen. Not only did Jay-Z bring Drake out to perform on stage with him, he let a still-fringe artist perform one of his own songs, “Successful,” in its entirety. “I’ll never forget that. I must have looked in the eyes of 40 people I know in the first 20 rows,” Drake says, sounding still somewhat shocked. “There were ex-girlfriends, guys who hated me, people who loved me, my mother — and it was just like, ‘This is it.’” Like most other testaments to Drake’s success, there’s a video on the Internet to prove the moment actually happened.

Read the Rest here

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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. As in, the one who had more than 60,000 downloads of his So Far Gone mixtape in its first day. As in, the one with Lil Wayne’s co-sign and Kanye West behind the lens of his first video, “Best I Ever Had.” As in, the one who had two songs off of So Far Gone land in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and sold 414,000 copies of the official re-release of his monstrous mixtape, yet still hasn’t dropped his debut album, but has already appeared alongside Wayne, Kanye and Eminem (on the same record!), handled a hook for Jay-Z, recorded with Alicia Keys, Timbaland, Jamie Foxx, Young Jeezy and a rack of other top-tier stars, received two Grammy nominations, starred in a Sprite commercial that debuted during this year’s pre-Super Bowl broadcast of all things, and been romantically linked to Rihanna. As in, the pretty boy who played the wheelchair-bound Jimmy in Canadian TV’s teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation, who purses his lips in photos and is prone to dressing like a character out of a romance novel. As in, the one the ladies love and the rap blogs love to hate. As in, the one with the R&B steeze who just dropped his lead single “Over,” a street record and instant fan pleaser. As in, the one who was passed over for XXL’s Freshmen Class of 2009 only to turn down being part of 2010’s. As in, that muthafucka—the one with the audacity to name his debut album Thank Me Later, as if his success were already a foregone conclusion.

So which is it? Is he that muthafucka? Or will he forever be that phenomenally successful rapper/singer/actor you love to hate? Only one way to find out.

What are your thoughts on this cover?
It’s great to me. I’ve never done XXL, so it’s exciting. And to be doing it with Nicki, man, that’s my dog. That’s more than my dog. That’s, like, we have the most interesting relationship, ’cause it’s so multilayered. That’s my co-worker, my peer, my family. But, at the same time, on any given day, she’s, like, the love of my life… Nicki’s a very intriguing character. To be doing it with her is great, man.

So since the success of your mixtape So Far Gone you’ve become rap’s golden child. Has it been hard getting your debut together, to live up to that hype?
Not hard. If you’re not struggling, then there’s something wrong. If it was effortless, then I’d be scared. If I was like, “Yeah, this is it, this is the one.” I’m still listening to it, and I’m like, “Man, I don’t know, it could be better.” But that’s just me. That’s just the artist in myself competing with myself. And now it’s so crazy, because, to be in the industry, a lot of people start playing you their music. You start hearing other people’s hits and sound, and you start thinking, Wow, okay, this is all the music that’s coming out this year. And you start thinking about yourself fitting into that, you know? Like, last year, other than Blueprint 3, it was a pretty dry year for hip-hop, as far as, like, the legends. But this year it’s way different. You know, you’ve got OutKast rumored to be coming out.

Do you know something we don’t?
I don’t. I just read what I read. Even from, like, [Santogold] is coming out again, MGMT. You’ve got Jeezy. You’ve got T.I. Carter IV’s gonna drop as soon as Wayne gets out. So it’s a great year for music. But when you’re in it, you also start thinking about, Well, I can’t get lost in that. And I make R&B, and hip-hop, so I’m not only thinking about the rappers—I’m thinking about the Dreams, the MGMTs, just great music on a whole. That’s the best part about it, because that’s what makes my music better and pushes me to keep working on it, as opposed to just being, like, “Okay, it’s done.” I wasn’t confident when I dropped So Far Gone, neither. I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life.

Really?
Yeah, ’cause I started the mixtape off with an R&B song about women that were lost in the world. It was a risk. I mean, we knew it meant something to us, but we also sat there, like, “Man, are people going to accept this? A rapper that’s singing?” And I’m not just doing melodies, I’m singing. Same with this album—I’m singing. And I even went further. I explored music on So Far Gone. I was taking other people’s music and revamping it. I can’t do that on an album. I love that genre of music. It sparks something in me when
I use soundscapes or write like that. So now I’ve crafted my own interpretations on that that apply to my life, and I’m just wondering, Are those going to work now? ’Cause it’s just me. It’s my shit. So it’s a lot of unknowns on this album.

Sometimes I’ll have been up all night thinking about it, and then I finally get to the studio, listen to it front to back, and I’m like, “Man, this is a good record. It’s a great first record.” And it’s so crazy, too, because people are always telling me—oh, you know, like, the Kanyes, and the Jays, and the Jeezys, they put me, like, for some reason, over there, like my album is gonna be competing with those people. And I don’t know if it’s just what they assume soundwise, like, maybe it’ll sound that big and be in the category, but really, for the new artists that just put out a mixtape and are working on their first album, I mean, just those guys, the new class, that’s really where I’m at. I really only put out a mixtape, and this is my first album. And just, like, [Kid] Cudi or a Wale, J. Cole—time-line-wise, that’s where I am. —Benjamin Meadows-Ingram

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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.”

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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.

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Last month, 10 up-and-coming MCs started getting fresh like it was their first day of school. They had to be camera-ready to shoot the annual “Freshmen 10″ issue of XXL magazine. The special edition of the publication has become a hip-hop tradition, as they give the nod to 10 mic masters they feel will be the next big stars.

In 2008, names like Saigon, Lil Boosie and Plies made the cut, while last year, B.o.B, Charles Hamilton, Wale and Asher Roth graced the cover. Other members of the ’09 class were Kid Cudi, Ace Hood, Curren$y, Blu, Mickey Factz and Cory Gunz.

XXL Editor in Chief Vanessa Satten said the editorial staff started deciding the 2010 class two months ago. Besides their own research, they also took recommendations from the magazine’s editors at large and freelance writers.

“It’s always interesting to assemble the guys, because you don’t know what kind of vibe you’re gonna get,” Satten said about the photo shoot. “The first [class in 2008], they were kinda brooding. They were kind of boring on the actual shoot. The second one, they were exciting. This year, we didn’t know what to expect from them, because the first two [classes] were so opposite of each other. You never know what you can expect when you get those 10 rappers together. It could be pretty much anything.

“You’re not dealing with divas like you normally do with a bigger cover,” she added. “But at the same time, you’re dealing with people who’ve got these insecurities, who are not used to the situation and not as recognizable. You gotta get them to be a bit more animated and be a little bit more interesting so the photos could be spectacular. It’s a little different when you put a bigger star on the cover.”

Satten played it close to the vest when asked who some of the names were, but she did say the new set is different from ’09.

“Last year, in general, the class was more Internet-driven,” she said. “It was kind of a different class. The office would make fun — it was more of a nerdy class. The rappers involved might get offended by that, but it was definitely to the direction of the Internet audience, the Internet rappers. This [new] class is a mix of that and a little bit more street. And more of hodgepodge.”

A question Satten said she hears a lot is whether Drake will be on this year’s cover. Some fans where shocked that was omitted from the ’09 class. But as Satten pointed out, his So Far Gone mixtape came out just about the same time as the issue hit newsstands.

“As of right now, he doesn’t have an album,” Satten said of Drake. “But he is technically a freshmen to us. He might not think so or think he’s beyond that now.”

The “Freshmen 10″ issues lands on stands in March. Satten said there will be a DJ Whoo Kid mixtape to promote the issue sometime in the near future, as well as a party and a tour with some of the artists.

Source: MTV

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