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Drake Says The Weeknd Joint Project 'Has to Happen'
The OVOXO saga continues.
While sharing the stage with The Weeknd at the 8th annual OVO Fest on Monday (Aug. 7), Drake announced that their long-awaited OVO and XO collaborative project should be in the works.
“I don’t want to do this to you on stage,” he told his fellow Canadian. “But I feel like that OVOXO project has to happen at some point. I just want to say that.”
This is not the first time that they have mentioned such a project. In November, Abel spoke about it during an interview with Beats 1. “He came in as my big bro and showed the world what I could do,” he said. “From then on, he’s always been supporting me and I’ve always been supporting him. Behind the scenes, we’re still very close but it’s cool that the world can see us doing our own thing. OVO/XO will always be there.”
At the time, he also explained the circumstances that he would like to create the project under. “It’s cool to have both monsters work together as opposed to one monster and one little guy coming in,” he added. “It’s dope, like Kanye and Jay Z, when [Watch the Throne] happened.”
Rumors of a feud have plagued the Toronto duo in the past. Some speculated this was because Abel chose not to sign with OVO after starting his career under Drake.
The Starboy was cryptic about their relationship when talking about their work together on Drake’s Take Care. “I gave up almost half of my album,” he said. “It’s hard. I will always be thankful—if it wasn’t for the light he shined on me, who knows where I’d be. And everything happens for a reason. You never know what I would say if this success wasn’t in front of me now.”
Since then, however, it seems the former collaborators made peace. They’ve appeared together on stage several times and they also linked up in the videos for The Weeknd’s “Reminder” and Nav’s “Good for It.”
Joint projects seem to be appealing to Drizzy. He teamed up with Future on What a Time to Be Alive and has also teased The 6ers, a joint project with Gucci Mane. On top of all of that, he is working on his next solo album, the follow-up to this year’s More Life and last year’s Views.