Drake Explains “Tuscan Leather” Record On ‘Nothing Was The Same’

Drake is the newest cover subject for GQ Magazine’s July 2013 issue. Some excerpts of the cover story, which is titled “How To Drake It In America,” reveals his thoughts on Chris Brown, the single “Started From The Bottom,” and Nothing Was The Same.

Writer Michael Paterniti hung out with Drizzy in his San Fernando Valley home, so you can expect the full story to be eventful. A highlight, however, is their discussion on a track called “Tuscan Leather.” It samples Whitney Houston and Curtis Mayfield at a 1987 concert in Montreux.

“Having the same fears, shedding similar tears, and of course dying in so many years, it don't mean that we can't have a good life,” he says.

He explains the concept behind the title as, “Tom Ford fragrance that some say smells like a brick of cocaine."

Read some more of the story below, and grab the new GQ now.

On Chris Brown:
"I hear he has everything he could want now. I don't want my name to be synonymous with that guy's name. I really don't. I wish we could sit down just like you and me are right now, and talk it out man-to-man. But that's not going to happen. I'm not confrontational, but if someone challenges, I'm not going to back down. If I think about it too much, I feel it wrapping around my foot, like I get a feeling it could end really badly...Like, it gets really dark."

On "Started From The Bottom:"
"I think a lot of people wish their favorite rapper wrote it—as if a song like that should be gangster—but I was the one who wrote it, and everyone has their bottom."

"As for my whole story, I wouldn't change a thing. I've told bits and pieces of it—and I'll tell more. Maybe because I had friends who grew up in the hood, I could have acted like I had, too, and perpetrated a different lifestyle, and it would be eating away at me because it wouldn't be the truth. i'm actually here in front of you living the truth. I wake up in the morning and my heart is light, man. It's not heavy. I don't have skeletons in the closet on their way out. This is my real age, my real name, my real past, and I'm good with that."

On Nothing Was The Same:
"This is my fucking moment to say if I wanted to rap all the time, really rap, I would, but I also love to make music. I'll do this for you right now. But it's for me, too. It's my story...I'm trying to get back to that kid in the basement. To say what he has to say. And I'm trying to make it last."

[via GQ]