“I wrote it as a reference and it ended up making the album. “I wasn’t supposed to be on that hook ,” Drake says of The Blueprint 3’s trend-snubbing album cut. But he’s such a good guy, he was like, ‘I gave you my word.’ I don’t know what I’d do without that guy sometimes, he’s just full of gems and advice.”ĭrake adds that he’s proud of the collaborations that he’s done with Hov, from “Pound Cake” to Thank Me Later’s “Light Up.” But there’s one that he would’ve done differently. “I sent the song back to Jay-and that was when it almost became a Jay-Z song. “The beat brought the Jay verses to life,” Drake says. “I was like, this is like some Foxy Brown album cut… too Ill Na Na,” he quipped, referencing Foxy’s debut LP.īoi-1da cracked the code with what would become the final instrumental. Soon after, Noah “40” Shebib to cooked up a beat that Drake says was good, but a bit too nostalgic. He sent me the two verses acappella-he told me, I never do this.” “I had the nerve to ask Jay if I could not only get that song from him,” Drake remembers, “but if I could get the acappella because I had an idea for it.