The transition from teenage melodrama star to rap sensation sounds like a tricky bridge to traverse, but for Drake the journey has found him at the front of the hoard of the hip-hop hype. With a top 10 EP on the Billboard 200 and a song with Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne, the man born Aubrey Graham is ready to rise to the occasion with his first full-length.
Tentatively titled Thank Me Later, Drake explained in a recent interview with Billboard that the album hasn’t come together quite as quickly due to a July knee injury and subsequent surgery. Since then, it’s been anything but the hip-hop life.
“Sitting at home in your apartment and having a doctor come over every day and eating healthy and going to the gym — there’s not much of a rap album to be made off that,” Drake said. “I have to get my inspiration and start seeing things and going to dinners and meeting people again and just finding stories to tell for this album. I’m trying to make something timeless”.
That effort includes releasing the album’s first “story,” a song entitled “Shut It Down”. Featuring The-Dream, Drake said the song is for the ladies and is to show them “…even though I’m up here and have the option to mingle with these ‘upper-echelon’ women, if you will, that sometimes I’d rather be with the girl from back home or a student or a girl that works at Wal-Mart”. Tre romantique.
As for guest spots, include the ever-popular aforementioned rap impresarios plus a few surprise guests which he promised will blow our collective minds. And in case you think he’s forgotten his roots, Drake says he’ll never leave the acting thing behind and even has dreams of doing a buddy pic with pal Jamie Foxx.
“Shut It Down” should be out in January. Thank Me Later is scheduled for February 2010.
