Make Me Proud

“I like a woman with a future and a past, a lil’ attitude problem all good, it’ll make shit last.”

In the past, I’ve admittedly criticized Drake for recycling his lyrics with redundant topics of sex and cash. But with a few singles leaked from his impending Take Care album like the one posted, I’m still excited to hear what he and the Weeknd have concocted over the past year. Given the Weeknd’s repertoire of dark, haunting R&B tunes, along with the nostalgic meaning behind the album’s title, it’s bound to be slated as the emo anthem for singles late at night, pumping glasses of champagne till they forget who they drunkenly ravaged in bed later. His verses have become increasingly honest and I appreciate how he values the intelligence, education and healthy lifestyle of a woman as depicted in “Make Me Proud”. I dig you, Drizzy, I really do.

Reading his recent interview with Elle Magazine was also a surprising glimpse into his life. His answers were wonderfully raw and sincere, which any other Young Money rapper wouldn’t be caught dead speaking with such sensitivity. Peep the following snippet below:

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ELLE:  Let’s start with “Marvin’s Room.” Four women in a week? Yes, please explain.
DRAKE:  I used to be filling a void. There was a point where I felt like I needed to keep the company of a woman every night.

ELLE:  The same woman?
D:  Uh, different women.

ELLE:  You don’t have to apologize.
D:  Yeah, at the same time, I do. Because one day I’m going to want to meet a woman that doesn’t have such a tainted past. It’s like, Well, how can I expect the woman I love to have such a clean record?

ELLE:  Are you lonely?
D:  When you’re on the road and moving city to city, when someone isn’t there at the end of the night, you feel empty. The 15 or 20 seconds after a man reaches his climax is the realest moment he’ll ever have in his life. And if you happen to be with somebody that isn’t someone you want to converse with, you start feeling like, I wish I was just here watching True Blood by myself.

ELLE:  When you were a kid, your father—who’d been incarcerated—would drive you all the way from Toronto to Memphis to spend time with his family. What did you learn about women from him?
D:  What not to do. Ways that I never want to make a woman feel. I was there when my mom used to be upset or cry because of the things my father would do. In a rare moment of self-realization, my dad confirmed that I should treat women better. My dad has a lot of gifts. He’s charming and was a sharp dresser, big on atmosphere and candles. I learned a lot from him about being a romantic.

ELLE:  Has a woman ever hurt you?
D:  I’ve probably been hurt more than I’ve hurt someone else. It’s a different world, with the microscope of the Internet.

ELLE:  What makes it so hard?
D:  To get women to trust you. When you have a woman in your life and you’re telling her, “I’m in New York working on my album,” and you’re actually in New York working on your album, but they’re saying you’re in the Bahamas with so-and-so, it’s hard for her to believe. I’ve had women lash out based off the fact that they think I’m lying when I’m not.

ELLE:  “Fireworks” was about being Rihanna’s rebound guy, right?
D:  Not necessarily the rebound guy.

ELLE:  Did she hurt you?
D:  At the time it hurt, but she didn’t mean to. I’ll never put that on her. I was hurt because I started to slowly realize what it was. I guess I thought it was more. That was the first girl with any fame that paid me any mind. You spend days reading about this person in the magazines. All of a sudden you have this number-one song and you’re at some birthday party and there she is. And you’re just some naive kid from Toronto staying in some shitty-ass hotel who got invited to this party on a whim. That’s just how it happened.

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Spoken eloquently and honestly like a true gentleman in an industry of debauchery.