Edit: This song is produced by Needlz. I love crediting producers; they don’t get much love.

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Video: Drake Working On ‘Best I Ever Had’ Video

Ladies love him, girls adore him. No, we’re not talking about old-school rap legend Rob Base — we’re talking about Heartbreak Drake. The Lil Wayne protégé has incredible buzz surrounding his breakout hit, “Best I Ever Had.”

The song is from Drake’s recent mixtape, So Far Gone, released in February of this year. The track is a favorite during his live shows, and it’s also taken off on radio recently.

Drake told MTV News before his show at Manhattan’s S.O.B.’s that he’s in the process of putting together a video for the song.

“I been working with a couple people on some ideas,” he explained. “I don’t wanna say who yet, because everything isn’t confirmed yet. It should be pretty solid in the next few days. The biggest thing about that song is that a lot of women come up to me and say, ‘That’s my song, because it really makes me feel special.’ So I told the directors that were interested that I just want the visuals to coincide with that feeling. I want women to feel special when they watch the visual and say, ‘I wish that was me,’ or ‘I know that feeling.’ That’s the goal with the video — to be genuine and not sappy. Be sexy and keep it together, but still make women smile.”

The Toronto-based MC said he hopes to finish the clip by next month’s BET Awards. In June, the currently unsigned artist will also begin working on his debut album. Drake is rumored to be working with Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil Wayne, among others.

Check out Drake talking about his mentor Lil Wayne and becoming accepted as a peer in Mixtape Daily, coming up on Monday.

via The New York Times

If there was a time in hip-hop before Drake, it’s tough to remember. On rap Web sites, which abhor a vacuum, seemingly every move he’s made in recent months has been captured and archived in what has amounted to, essentially, a Drake lifecast: video footage and photographs of concerts, audio clips of radio interviews, endless personal and professional gossip and, oh, new songs to go with the two, “Best I Ever Had” and “Every Girl,” that have already become hits, before this Toronto rapper has even signed a recording contract. A savior was being built, one blog post at a time.

It was under these klieg lights that Drake — in fact, a mortal — appeared at S.O.B.’s on Tuesday, in his first proper New York performance since his anointing by acclamation. “My reality is brighter than your dreams are,” he rapped on his introductory number, “Congratulations,” the first track from his hungrily received “So Far Gone” mixtape from earlier this year. “I got your dream girl riding in your dream car/And the visual is stunning./I hope they document what I’m becoming.”

Documentation was not a problem at this show, played to a thick crowd of label executives, journalists, bloggers, radio personalities, rappers and at least a handful of paying fans, who were considerate enough to bring cameras. How the show would be processed was as important as how it would be performed.

But embracing the new, it turns out, isn’t that different from embracing the familiar. Drake, 22, is an extremely adept student, pairing the whimsical, intricate rhymes of Lil Wayne with the melodic gifts and self-flagellation of Kanye West. He’s a braggart and a skeptic, a stud and a nerd.

And a star, almost. That Drake couldn’t carry the burden placed upon him on Tuesday night was almost a given. Wearing a striped Commes des Garçons shirt and red Air Jordans, he dressed the part, but he never fully eased into it. At moments he seemed uncertain, far more so than in videos of recent shows elsewhere. When he was joined by the veteran Bun B on “Uptown,” he appeared small by comparison.

Maybe the tiny stage was too confining. (“This is the smallest show we ever did,” Drake’s D.J. said, a roundabout boast.) Maybe some of his songs — “Successful,” “Closer to My Dreams” — were too moody. Or maybe the crowd was too resistant, especially when Drake sang: “Brand New,” a note of self-doubt addressed to a lover, is one of his finest, but here it was stilted, an obstacle to be moved around.

There were flashes of the cleverness that has made Drake a force, though. “Buzz so big I could probably sell a blank disc,” he rapped cheerfully on “Best I Ever Had.” “When my album drop bitches’ll buy it for the picture”; men will “buy it too and claim they got it for their sister.” He looked giddy, if not quite cocky, when rhyming about the trappings of the high life, and also its traps: “Even when the Phantom’s leased, them ho’s wanna get in.” (The best Drake songs have been collected on mixtapes, the best of which are “Heartbreak Drake” and “The Drought Is Over: Friends With Money.”)

It may seem early in Drake’s career for such laments, but such is the price of accelerated fame. He has already had to face questions that no other rapper without a proper album does: Is Drake dating Rihanna? Should Drake, a former child actor (under his real name, Aubrey Graham, he played Jimmy Brooks on “Degrassi: The Next Generation”), be dropping references to the Bloods in his rhymes?

He already has the paranoia of celebrity down cold. “Why do I feel so alone,” Drake wondered on “Say What’s Real,” his version of Kanye West’s “Say You Will.” “Like everybody passing through the studio/is in character, as if he acting out a movie role.”

And in the back of S.O.B.’s was Mr. West, playing the role of established star and eager fan. He danced his way out of the room at the end of the night, his throne not yet at risk.

via MTV News

With its mix of singing and rapping, Drake’s buzz-building mixtape So Far Gone has drawn comparisons to Kanye West’s latest effort 808s & Heartbreak. For his part, Drake said the Chicago lyricist had a huge impact on his music and even described ‘Ye as “the most influential person” in shaping the young rapper’s sound.

“Before I ever got the chance to meet him, Kanye West shaped a lot of what I do, as far as music goes,” Drake told MTV News on Tuesday night before his show at S.O.B.’s. “We always, always, always took the time to listen to Kanye’s music and appreciate it beyond. We searched the samples and we find out where his inspiration came from, because he has one of the best ears in music, period. He knows how to recognize great music that’s not his. He knows how to utilize great sounds and great music. So before I met him, I had the utmost respect for Kanye West. I’d even go as far as to say he’s the most influential person as far as a musician that I’d ever had in my life.”

Drake said he and ‘Ye initially met in Hawaii, where West has been working on music recently. The interaction was brief at first, but now the two are expected to collaborate on Drake’s upcoming debut album. ‘Ye attended Drake’s New York show this week, and one of West’s managers, Gee Roberson, acts as a co-manger for Drake.

Over the weekend, West returned the accolades in a post on his blog, saying that one of Drizzy’s lines on Young Money’s “Every Girl” is the rhyme of the year.

“Drake said, ‘Do you like girls like I do?? Les-bi-honest!!!!!’ Best line of the year so far!” West wrote in all caps.

As an upstart, Drake said the comment was hilarious and flattering. “I feel like it’s funny, because that’s something he might have said,” Drake said about the line. “[But] it’s an honor that he’s even looking at me as somewhat of an equal, somewhat of a peer. I think he’s one of the greatest to ever do it.”

via NahRight.

Lots of familiar faces. Photos spotted via NahRight. Photo Credit: Nunez for Wireimage/Mel D. Cole for VillageSlum.

Drake recently performed at Cal State LA closing out for UNI and Ryan Leslie. MySpace Hip Hop had a chance to sit with him for some exclusive personal questions. Check out his answers and clips of him performing his mixtape hits. What was missing? “Replacement Girl” from his set… we can only hope for him to make a surprise appearance at an upcoming Trey Songz MySpace Release Show so we can see it live? Who knows? Wtay tuned: www.myspace.com/hiphop. Filmed by Randy Nangpi of Nevafale Productions. Edited by Mike Purugganan of No Surrender Fightwear. Interview by Roslynn Cobarrubias of MySpace Music.

Our girl Nisha just sent us a picture of her dad’s license plate. Ironically, it starts with ATF; lol.

Shouts to Besidone Amoruwa from The Voice for sending these over. These are pictures of Drake while he was out in San Bernadino is California for his So Far Gone Tour. Photo credits go to Curtis J. Moore of CMoore Photos. Congrats to Hard2PleaseEntertainment for putting on a great & successful event. Lots of celebrities came through; check out the pictures below; enjoy.

Peter Rosenberg talks to Drake about lots–including the fact that Drake is Jewish and was in fact Bar Mitzvah’d. Kanye shows up for some vintage Kanye-Rosenberg awkwardness.

Spotted via NahRight.