Drake appears in GQ magazine.

Yesterday, we shared Drake’s cover of GQ magazine’s April Style Bible issue and now we have another shot from the spread as well as excerpts from his interview with the publication. The rapper spoke openly about the current state of the Hip-Hop industry and the true inspiration behind is often emotional lyrics.

Drake has enjoyed a remarkable last few months. In fact, he has completely avoided the dreaded ‘sophomore slup’ as his ‘Take Care’ album is on track to surpass the 1.55 million sales benchmark of his ‘Thank Me Later’ debut album by the end of March.

Read what Drake had to say during his GQ magazine interview below:

On the new generation of rappers…

“Rap now is just being young an fly and having your shit together. The mood of rap has changed.”

On his bad boy persona…

 “I’m mischievous, but I’m calculated.”

On finding influences for his songwriting…

“I’m trying to find the same feelings that I had for women when I had very little going on, which is tough. When I was in my mom’s house, I had nowhere to go, no real obligations. My girlfriend at the time, if she was mad at me, my day was all fucked-up. I didn’t have anything else. And that made for some of the best music, I think, to date. Records where I felt small. …It’s really difficult for me to find something that makes me feel small.”

On past promiscuity…

“There’s just a time where it was like, just getting pussy. Where I was in that sort of ‘I’m young, I’m going to disconnect from my emotions and just do what everyone else tells me I should do and just a be a rapper and have my fun.’ And for me as a person, it just doesn’t work. The seconds after a man reaches climax, that’s the realest moment of your life. If I don’t want you next to me in that fifteen, twenty seconds, then there’s something wrong.”

Read more on GQ

Photo by Sebastian Kim/GQ

Thoughts?