Drake sat down with Complex Magazine to discuss the Best I Ever Had video, the various possibilities he had for record deals, the details of his signing to Aspire / Young Money, and his BET Awards Performance. Check some excerpts from the interview below, and the visit Complex for the full interview.
Complex: Everyone’s been waiting on this video. Can you take us through the making of it?
Drake: Yeah. The video is directed by Kanye West. Basically we decided, as opposed to taking ourselves super serious, we just wanted to have some fun with it. Myself, being a young man, a young single man at that, I kind of wanted to be real about the way I function with women at this current point in my life. Which is, I don’t have one woman that I call my girl. There’s different girls in my life that play different roles and I see at different times, but collectively they kind of make up the roster of happiness for me [Laughs].
Complex: Understandable. So what’s the concept?
Drake: The concept of the video is, I’m a coach at a high school and the girls of my life are all on my high school basketball team. Throughout the video you see us prepping for this big championship game, and my team ends up losing. You see the looks on their faces at the end of the video, but the moral of the story, I guess, is win or lose, you can still be the best to somebody. When women see the video and see all the breast and ass, hopefully they don’t take offense. Hopefully they see the real meaning.
Complex: Kanye is known as kind of a control freak. How was it working with him on set with him directing?
Drake: Me and Kanye have a great eye to eye. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I would give Kanye the utmost credit for actually being one of the most understanding creative people that I have worked with. I think me and Kanye have mutual respect for each another and I listen to what he has to say regardless, ’cause I trust him. I don’t really fight his suggestions [Laughs.] But he was great. It was a long day and I just thank him for dedicating the time he dedicated. He was great.
Complex: For real. Going back to your music, “Best I Ever Had” jumped to #3 on the Billboard charts. And then you announced yesterday that you signed your deal with Universal…
Drake: Nah…I definitely want to clear this up, I didn’t sign to Universal. I’m actually signed to… a lot of people were telling me, “Oh, you should do it independent.” I’m actually 100% independent. I signed to Cortez Bryant and G. Roberson, my managers, so I signed a joint venture between Aspire Music Group, which is them, and Young Money. So the only part that Universal plays is P&D [pressing and distribution]. I’m not a Universal artist. I’m signed to myself.
Complex: What does Young Money bring to the table?
Drake: Since the beginning of this, Lil’ Wayne has always put himself out there on behalf of me, from spitting my verse at the VMAs, to jumping on the songs that I needed him on and always promoting me. Right now it’s more about building up Young Money, as opposed to what Young Money brings to the table at this point. Obviously, what Young Money brings to the table is Lil’ Wayne. He’s a powerhouse and I felt it was only fair to stay loyal. I thought it was only fair for him to get that look and I wanted the YM logo on the album and to make sure that he knows that I don’t take what he did for me for granted.
Complex: You were entertaining other offers from Atlantic and Interscope, right?
Drake: I can definitely say that I wanted to be over at Interscope for a while, but it wouldn’t allow me to work with Wayne the way that I wanted to work with Wayne. I had to make a sacrifice. But with that being said, if we sell some records and people actually see how the record deal breaks down… Somebody told me they saw my deal the other day and they said it was one of the worst record deals in history [for] the label. That’s a good thing for me. I own everything, I have 100% creative control, I own all my masters, everything. I’m blessed to be in that situation. If we sell some records, I think we’ll just add to the historic pace that this has been going at.