By Hayden Wright
Drake sat down for an hour with eccentric Canadian radio personality Nardwuar to discuss musical influences, history and his views on the industry. In the rapid-fire format, Nardwuar showed Drake a vinyl album and asked for his impressions, but the conversation wandered into his life pre-fame and how he deals with celebrity today. Here are some highlights from the meeting of Canadian icons:
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On the Notorious B.I.G.: “Biggie has my favorite cadence. The approach to every joint he got on was just incredible, so I’m a huge Biggie fan.”
On dancehall music: “I’m into any dancehall—any dancehall, any reggae, conscious—it doesn’t matter. I’ll listen to anything. I feel like the writing, the melodies, the layering of the music in the genre is just incredible.”
On rapping on Degrassi: “It was the first time I ever got to showcase rap on television. I think they gave me an opportunity after that to write a real song myself—I don’t think I wrote those bars, believe it or not. I think that was the first time rap showed its face on Degrassi. Big moment there.”
On Shaquille O’Neal’s rap career: “Oh man, one of my favorite people in the world. I gotta be real, me and Shaq…I can’t hate on Shaq rapping because he’s like, the man. Like he says: ‘I know I got skills.'”
On the media: “I just like to let my work speak for me. I feel like anyone that shows up here other than you—you come bearing gifts, trying to shed light on knowledge and history—have to do their job. And their job is to get a headline, get me to slip up or divulge something or say the wrong thing when I don’t really mean to. I just don’t enjoy it. It’s not an enjoyable experience for me.”
Watch the full interview here:
