Previously unannounced guest stars include Young Jeezy, T.I. and Swizz Beatz.
By Jayson Rodriguez

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Drake


Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images

The wait for one of hip-hop’s most heavily anticipated debut albums is almost over, with less than a month until Drake’s Thank Me Later is released.

The track list for the project, set to drop June 15, leaked online Tuesday (May 20) via the rapper’s most dedicated fan site, AllThings-Fresh.net.

The lineup features an array of A-list talent, including Young Jeezy, T.I. and Swizz Beatz and the already-announced Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, The-Dream and Lil Wayne. Fellow Young Money member Nicki Minaj will also make a guest turn on “Up All Night.”

A representative for Drake did not respond to requests for comment at press time, but a source at his parent label, Universal/Motown Records, confirmed the track list to MTV News.

Drake has said in the past that he didn’t want Thank Me Later, his first release since breakthrough mixtape So Far Gone, to be laden with features. “I really don’t bank on collaborations unless it makes sense,” Drake said. “If I get people’s verses back and they don’t coincide with the vision I have, I’ll do the whole album by myself. I’m not really worried about the special guests. It’s about linking to me and my story. There’s people that just add to my story.”

During a tour stop in L.A. last week, Drake revealed that Alicia Keys would appear on the album’s first track, “Fireworks.”

The Toronto MC spoke to MTV News late last year about the Jay-Z-assisted song “Light Up,” which he described as “phenomenal.”

Several Thank Me Later tracks, among them “Shut It Down” (featuring The-Dream) and “Miss Me” (featuring Lil Wayne) have already popped up online. “Miss Me” is slated to be Drake’s third single, following “Over” and “Find Your Love.”

Drake described “Miss Me” in a previous interview, explaining the concept as a “straightforward” number reflecting the circumstances of his and Wayne’s lives. “It’s a song about being away from what you love and hoping that when you’re gone, doing you, somebody out there misses you,” he said. “It goes for Wayne in his situation, and it goes for me in my situation, ’cause I’m on the road for I don’t how long right now.”

The Thank Me Later track list, according to Universal/Motown:

1. “Fireworks” (featuring Alicia Keys)
2. “Karaoke”
3. “The Resistance”
4. “Over”
5. “Show Me a Good Time”
6. “Up All Night” (featuring Nicki Minaj)
7. “Fancy” (featuring T.I. and Swizz Beatz)
8. “Shut It Down” (featuring The Dream)
9. “Unforgettable” (featuring Young Jeezy)
10. “Light Up” (featuring Jay-Z)
11. “Miss Me” (featuring Lil Wayne)
12. “Cece’s Interlude”
13. “Find Your Love”
14. “Thank Me Now”

What song are you looking forward to hearing most on Drake’s Thank Me Later? Let us know in the comments!

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New video shows Drake torn between a wholesome beauty and a seductive dancer.
By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes

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Drake in his “Over” music video


Photo: Universal Motown/ Young Money

No more waiting; the video for Drake’s “Over” premiered on Vevo Monday morning (April 12).

The clip starts off with Drake, dressed in white, sitting in a room on a bed, reflecting on his life these days. Images of explosions and time-lapsed cityscapes are projected on him and the wall of the room. From there, he launches into a heavy performance.

“This is my first video,” Drake said on the set of “Over” in early March, though he’s made clips for “Successful,” “Best I Ever Had” and some of his guest stints. “I’ve shot a lot of videos before, but this is my first attempt to establish myself as Drake the artist. Shooting the other videos I’ve done has been great. I really don’t care what other people think about them, they were great experiences for me. I’ve learned a lot from them. Today, I’m shooting with somebody I really look up to and respect. I’m shooting with Anthony Mandler.

“We talked colors, we talked epic, emotion-evoking visuals,” he added. “The story is actually interesting. The song is so aggressive, and it’s sort of a love story in the video. It has a lot to do with the album [Thank Me Later]. The album is about finding love, feeling, ‘Have I sold my soul?’ as far as, ‘Will I ever be able to gain the trust of a woman? Will I only be able to be around the dark, evil women? Will I ever find that pure love?’ Those elements are in the video. I look strong, I feel great, my knee’s feeling great. I’m jumping around, doing all kinds of stuff.”

Toward the end of the video, it looks like Drake has to choose between two beautiful women. One, played by Roc Nation singer Rita Ora, appears to be a more wholesome girl, while the other lady looks more dangerous as she dances provocatively in the background.

“It takes the song to another place,” Drake said of the video last week on the opening night of his Away From Home Tour. “It offers up a whole different look for the song. The song — to a lot of people — is ignorant, it’s club. This video is what I was really thinking about. The song is like a bad dream — but it’s not a bad dream, it’s not a terrible dream. It’s a little evil. The video really reflects that. It’s a struggle between the purities of my past life and what this new life has to offer. Even in the video, you see me looking back and forth between the two and deciding. At the end of the video I don’t necessarily make a decision, but when you get the album, you’ll see what choice I make.”

What do you think of Drake’s video for “Over”? Does it “take the song to another place,” like Drake says? Let us know in the comments below!

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Drake


Photo: Sam Hendrick/ MTV News

Drake has thankfully recovered from last year’s knee injury — the 23-year-old Toronto native has been onstage all this week performing as part of his Away From Home Tour.

“I had an assessment a week ago,” Drake told MTV News last week. “They told me that I’m definitely able to get out there and perform to the fullest. I’m still not going to be able to play basketball. I’m gonna stay far away from that, actually. But I’m ready to come back. I think I’m coming back with more maturity as far as connecting with the audience and less about running around. A lot of my performance energy before came from watching Lil Wayne. I always felt I needed to be just as energetic, running back and forth on the stage. In preparing for this tour, I realized my brand of music doesn’t really call for that. It’s more about me connecting with the audience and them enjoying the way we flip these songs around. I want them to walk away and be like, ‘That was a great night.’ ”

Drizzy has openers Francis and the Lights and K-OS on the road with him.

“I chose these acts with Oliver who works with me,” he explained. “They’re on the tour because they’re who I’m a fan of. I know I could have brought out other younger artists or rappers, but I want this to be an experience. I want them to be refreshed about music. Not like, ‘Oh, I went to another rap show.’ ”

What do you think of Drake’s live show? Let us know in the comments below!

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‘It’s really where I am in my life right now,’ Drake says of song he’s previewing on tour.
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Drake


Photo: Sam Hendrick/ MTV News

Fans of Drake’s are going to be treated to a preview of yet another track off of his Thank Me Later LP, dropping June 15, when they go to his Away From Home Tour this spring. The 23-year-old is performing the first verse of the much-anticipated new song “Fireworks” at his concerts.

Before his show at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania on Monday night, Drizzy explained to MTV News why he was letting the crowd sample the song. “The song itself is the first song on the album; I think it’s the biggest indicator of what the album is gonna be like,” he said. “That’s why I picked that song to go first, and that’s why I wrote the first verse like that. It’s really where I am in my life right now. I know they’re looking forward to the album, so I want them to get a feel of how the story starts off.”

“Fireworks” starts with the actual sound of fireworks in the background. From there, Drizzy begins talking about his life, joking that his 15 minutes of fame started about an hour ago.

“It truly is a story,” he added of the album. “At no point in the album does it fall off and become about some songs I slapped together. It’s all a story from beginning to end. Just like So Far Gone was. It’s that time.”

The Away From Home Tour — certain stops of which are eco-friendly Campus Consciousnessdates — runs through the end of May. Support acts are K-os and Frances and the Lights.

Are you going to see Drake on tour? Which songs are you looking forward to hearing? Talk about it in the comments!

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MTV News catches up with the rapper before his Away From Home Tour opening night.
By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Sway Calloway

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Drake


Photo: Jason Merritt/ Getty Images

SLIPPERY ROCK, Pennsylvania — Monday night (April 5) is a big one for Drake. The 23-year-old performer is opening his Away From Home Tour at Slippery Rock University and is set to take the stage around 9 p.m. ET.

Talking to MTV News earlier in the evening, the Young Money franchise player revealed the release date for his much-anticipated debut LP, Thank Me Later: June 15.

The date isn’t the only gem the “Best I Ever Had” rapper and two-time Grammy nominee dropped. He also revealed that he’ll be performing a new song from his album on tour called “Fireworks.”

So far, Drake has released one single from the upcoming album: “Over.” “We took a trip to Jamaica, where I did a lot of work for my album,” he told us on the “Over” video set last month. “There was this calm before the storm, and ‘Over’ represented the storm to me. It’s the moment. I wanted to emerge at first from this album and just let people know ‘This is how I’m coming out in the public eye. I’m ready for anything.’ Then when you get the album, it’s like, ‘Oh, he’s still human. He’s still thinking the same way.’ I wanted people to understand I could have lost it. ‘Over’ could have been my entire album. Just ’cause that’s what this industry and game will do to you if you lose yourself.”

Drake’s Away From Home Tour goes on for the next couple of months with openers Francis and the Lights and K-os. “They’re killing it right now,” Drake said shortly after taking in Francis and the Lights’ set on Monday.

Will Drake’s album be deemed a classic when it comes out on June 15? Let us know in the comments!

Stick with MTV News for much more from Drake’s opening night.

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Drake performs at mtvU’s Spring Break 2010


Photo: mtvU

It’s amazing to think that at this time last spring, Drake was a relative unknown. A year ago, Lil Wayne brought Drake and the rest of his Young Money camp onto the mtvU Spring Break stage in Panama City Beach, Florida, for a performance of “Every Girl.” That shortly after So Far Gone dropped, but shortly before the mixtape took Drake to another stratosphere.

Fast-forward to last week’s Spring Break 2010 shows in Acapulco, Mexico, and there couldn’t be a more perfect example of the line in his song “Over”: “I know way too many people here right now that I didn’t last year.” Drake performed that song — the first single off his upcoming Thank Me Later — for the first time on television in front of hundreds of excited, scantily clad partiers. This time, Drizzy was rapping by his lonesome, backed only by a live band.

Drake recently told MTV News that he wanted “Over” (produced by Boi-1da and Al Khaaliq) to prepare everyone for what’s to come from him.

“I wanted to emerge at first from this album and just let people know, ‘This is how I’m coming out in the public eye. I’m ready for anything,’ ” he said. “Then when you get the album, it’s like, ‘Oh, he’s still human. He’s still thinking the same way.’ I wanted people to understand I could have lost it. ‘Over’ could have been my entire album. Just ’cause that’s what this industry and game will do to you if you lose yourself.”

At Spring Break, Drake looked like he was composed and enjoying himself — jumping around, smiling and taking time to hit a beach ball back toward the crowd.

Drake’s fellow Young Money member Nicki Minaj also performs at the show. She joined Ludacris onstage in a white one-piece bathing suit covered by a see-through body suit and a platinum-blond wig as she spit her equally eccentric guest verse for “My Chick Bad.” Trey Songz also hit the stage to perform his cocksure, sultry single “I Invented Sex.”

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‘I love this record,’ DJ Khaled says.
By Shaheem Reid

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Drake


Photo: Jason Merritt/ Getty Images

Although Drake has had a string of hits on radio and in the club, from his own “Best I Ever Had” to collaborations like “Forever” and “Say Something,” the pressure was on for the first official single from Thank Me Later to deliver. And, judging from the reaction he’s getting from some of hip-hop’s biggest tastemakers, Drizzy has another smash on his hands with “Over.”

” ‘Over’ is real dope,” DJ Statik Selektah said. “He could have chose to run with a soft, candy-coated record, but he didn’t. The beat is crazy. I’m looking forward to his album!”

“I love this record,” DJ Khaled told MTV News. “It’s amazing! It’s special! Drake did it again! It’s a hit!”

“I think Drake’s record is dope,” said host of MTV2′s “Sucker Free” and Power 105.1 on-air personality DJ Envy. “I know he had a lot of pressure and the world staring at him, but I think he delivered. He did it his way — outside the box.

Drake’s song talks about how he’s dealing with his fame since coming on the scene last year.

“On a couple of different levels, it’s not what you might think somebody would do,” DJ Green Lantern said. “Its not like, ‘Let me make “Best I Ever Had” Part 2.’ It’s an everybody type of record.”

“I put him in the box with Kanye, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne — artists that love the craft,” Envy added.

“As I’m listening [to the song], I’m like, ‘Yeah man. It’s dope,” Green Lantern said. “In the sense of the general straight-listener sense, it’s a catchy song. It’s a catchy song that will stick in your mind, be on repeat and connect to people. ‘I’m doing me.’ That was the first part that stuck out to me. The ‘hood is gonna love the ‘I’m doing me. I’m doing me.’ That’s the ‘hood right there.”

Green says the record has ‘hood and pop appeal — it’s universal.

“As Drake said before, the hipsters and the hood f—s with him, so his single has to be across the board. The Jay Electronica lovers f— with Drake and the Lil Wayne/Gucci Mane lovers f— with Drake, so his single has to go across the board. It’s not a lot of people that could do that. Technically, the beat is different too — it’s a sample. I’m like, ‘This sh– is dope.’ ”

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