Kanye West x XXL

If last year you said Kanye is never making a comeback after to what he did to Taylor Swift, your wrong, because he came back even harder. Now he covers XXL of October. In this issue he speaks on apologizing to Taylor the young country singer (I'm sure none of us seen that coming).

When I moved to LA, she moved to LA/ And she wound up in a place that would eat her alive. Even if I stayed in New York, it wouldn’t have been like that. If I had lived in New York, she’d still be here.

On realizing his mistake

“I stress that the incident wasn’t about Taylor personally.” And it definitely wasn’t about race. Where I messed up is, at the end of the day, it’s your show, Taylor. It’s your show, MTV.”


On apologizing to his fans

“The relationship with the public and with your fans is like the relationship with your girlfriend. How could I not, at a certain point, be like, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been at the awards show. I’m sorry.’ Not that I don’t deserve to get beat up or change who I am inside, to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.”

“I knew I wasn’t in a great spot publicly after the incident, but I would just block it out and work as hard as possible and let my work be my saving grace”

Drake Opens up to XXL Magazine

Read this article and see how Drake really feels about the hate.

How do you respond to the hate?

Drake: I don’t respond. I cut myself off from outlets where I would be able to say anything anyway, but it’s really not my style to really say anything to people, you know. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, man, honestly, the music feedback I don’t really trip off of ’cause I know everybody likes their own thing so I don’t really trip when someone doesn’t like my music because what you’ll tend to do is there’ll be 40 people that say, “Oh, dope song,” and then there’ll be one guy that’s like, “Yo, this dude’s overrated, f*ck Drake,” and that’s the one you’ll pay attention to. That one guy will make you feel like everybody’s online dissing you so it’s easy to get caught up in the trap of the feedback. But to be honest that’s not even the stuff that bothers me, man. You want to know what really bothers me?


What?

Drake: What really bothers me is that fact that all my life, I always get caught in the worst, most unphotogenic poses ever. Now people follow me with cameras and are just clicking away and I always feel like I just look mad different in pictures. I hate seeing pictures of myself online when I’m leaving a spot or whatever; I just always get caught laughing ’cause I’m always outside making jokes or whatever with the people, but I always end up looking so stupid like that’s the shit that I’m always like, “Man, I wish that didn’t happen,” you know? But as for people’s opinions and shit like that, it’s all good. That’s what’s going to happen. You know people are entitled to their opinion and it takes a certain type of individual to really come online and give their opinion of your music, positive or negative. I don’t know if you do it, but I can’t say I’ve ever gone online and posted underneath someone’s song, and be like, “Dope song, son.” Or, “That shit is wack.” I’ve never done that before. It’s just a certain community of people that really feel like that’s their outlet and I know that me and my friends aren’t any of them so I don’t know who those people are and I can’t really take their opinion too close to heart just because I’m not really sure what those people are made of and if their opinion’s even valid so I just kind of keep it moving.

If it all ended today, if it got taken away, what would you want people to take away?

Drake: It can’t end yet. It can’t end yet because the story’s not done

XXL x Drake

Part 3 (and final post)

Remember we gave you Part 1: Cover of XXL ,Part 2: Nicki Minaj photo shoot, now Part 3: Drake's photo shoot!

What are your thoughts on this cover?

It’s great to me. I’ve never done XXL, so it’s exciting. And to be doing it with Nicki, man, that’s my dog. That’s more than my dog. That’s, like, we have the most interesting relationship, ’cause it’s so multilayered. That’s my co-worker, my peer, my family. But, at the same time, on any given day, she’s, like, the love of my life… Nicki’s a very intriguing character. To be doing

it with her is great, man.

So since the success of your mixtape So Far Gone you’ve become rap’s golden child. Has it been hard getting your debut together, to live up to that hype?

Not hard. If you’re not struggling, then there’s something wrong. If it was effortless, then I’d be scared. If I was like, “Yeah, this is it, this is the one.” I’m still listening to it, and I’m like, “Man, I don’t know, it could be better.” But that’s just me. That’s just the artist in myself competing with myself. And now it’s so crazy, because, to be in the industry, a lot of people start playing you their music. You start hearing other people’s hits and sound, and you start thinking, Wow, okay, this is all the music that’s coming out this year. And you start thinking about yourself fitting into that, you know? Like, last year, other than Blueprint 3, it was a pretty dry year for hip-hop, as far as, like, the legends. But this year it’s way different. You know, you’ve got OutKast rumored to be coming out.

XXL 10 Freshmen of '10

XXL finally decided who was good enough to be apart of the Third annual Freshmen class cover which was released today March 1st.
"The new breed of hustlers includes: Roc Nation’s first signee J. Cole, gangsta rap up-and-comer Nipsey Hu$$le, newly-minted Asylum lyricist Pill, 1017 Brick Squad member OJ Da Juiceman, indie-sensation Wiz Khalifa, G.O.O.D. Music’s own Big Sean, underground favorite Fashawn, Gary, Indiana rep Freddie Gibbs, West Coast phenom Jay Rock and the latest addition to the Atlantic roster, Donnis."

XXL will also be dropping an exclusive mixtape, DJ Whoo Kid Presents XXL 10 Freshman for ‘10 Mixtape next Monday March 8 which will be available for free on XXLMag.com, radioplanet.tv and thisis50.com—that will feature new music from all 10 of the cover stars.

My personal fav's are Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa and J.Cole.

Click the Title link to find out more about the classmates individually on XXLMag.com.

excuse me while I go bump some Wiz Khalifa-Studio Lovin'

x and o's