Drake opens up. Although the 6 God doesn’t do too many interviews these days, he and his producer Noah “40” Shebib made an exception for Nardwuar.
On Monday (May 9)—Drizzy and 40, who are celebrating Views being No. 1 on the Billboard 200—spoke with their fellow Canadian about a series of topics, including Drake’s apprehension with Q&As.
“I just like to let my work speak for me,” says Drake. “Anyone who comes here trying to do an interview other than you, bearing gifts and trying to shed light and knowledge and history, a lot of people just have to do their job and their job is to get a headline and try to get me to slip up or divulge something or say the wrong thing when I don’t really mean to, and yeah, I just don’t enjoy it.”
Watch the rare Drake and 40 interview with Nardwuar and see highlights from the hour-long laugh-filled Q&A below.
On Bow Wow: “When you were younger, you wanted to be as big as Bow Wow was. All the girls wanted Bow Wow.”
On Steph Curry: “Steph is like family to me. One of my best friends that works for me is Ayesha’s cousin and Steph is married to Ayesha, so we’re all like family.”
On Bun B: “Any new talent, he’s always there to lend his advice. Always there to give a feature if he enjoys the music and supports it. He’ll come out to your show. Bun will pretty much do whatever he can to keep the culture growing.”
On strip clubs: “The most money I’ve ever thrown in the strip club, I don’t know man, I think one weekend, they gave me money, but the thing was, it was money to throw, and I think it was like $50-something-thousand or something like that.”
On “Chaining Tatum”: “I’m a Channing Tatum fan and I just wanted to find a way to use his name. I thought the line was amazing. It’s one of my favorite bars.”
On Michael Jackson: “He is the greatest entertainer of all time…He pushed himself further and further, did things that I can’t even comprehend…He was just the greatest.”
On sampling Timmy Thomas’ “Why Can’t We Be Together”: “I discovered this sample after the fact. I actually fell in love with this song after I heard the [‘Hotline Bling’] beat. It was almost a daunting task at that point to even think of sampling this. Incredible song. Such a good gift because this was actually in my top 10 or 20 [favorite] songs of all time.”
On Mac Dre: “This is a guy who, again, I idolize because he’s from a place, and that place he’s from, which is the Bay Area, holds him to legendary status. I respect if you’re a legend where you’re actually from. It’s cool to be popular in the world, but if you’re a legend where you’re actually from and they don’t say that anybody else is better than you, then I respect you.”
On Three 6 Mafia: “I was a huge Three 6 fan. A group of guys from somewhere that didn’t have a sound and they created a sound. I’m a huge, huge, huge Juicy fan. Huge Paul fan. I got to meet the guys later on in life, but I’m a big, big Three 6 fan.”
On Pam Grier: “Pam Grier shaped what my idea of a woman was, as far as shape, curves, and body. Pam Grier is what I fell in love with as a young guy.”
On King of the Dot: “I’m a King of the Dot fan so I did miss the Grammys for King of the Dot. There were important battles going on that day and OVO was sponsoring the event. Shoutout to [Organik] and Gully [TK]. It was better than the Grammys, to be honest, that night so I was happy about it.”