Drake is a thoughtful interviewee, who burnishes his answers with a measured approached that’s not guarded as much as it’s just polite and clear about his views. His willingness to engage with the media was one of the many experiences I personally enjoyed about his career, both as a professional and personally as a fan of the culture. But when he felt he got burned by Rolling Stone a couple of years ago in a cover story when he commented about rappers talking about their art collection, Drizzy recoiled and hasn’t spoken much to the press since.

The Toronto star graces the cover of the 100th issue of The Fader and gets candid about the ghostwriting accusations leveled at him and the subsequent battled that ensued between him and Meek Mill.

“I need, sometimes, individuals to spark an idea so that I can take off running. I don’t mind that,” he explained. “And those recordings—they are what they are. And you can use your own judgment on what they mean to you…If I have to be the vessel for this conversation to be brought up—you know, God forbid we start talking about writing and references and who takes what from where—I’m OK with it being me… It’s just, music at times can be a collaborative process, you know? Who came up with this, who came up with that—for me, it’s like, I know that it takes me to execute every single thing that I’ve done up until this point. And I’m not ashamed.”

As for the accuser, Meek, well, Drake was just as puzzled as we were by the Philly battle MC’s lack of musical output; though, with his IG tease of DC4 that may be changing.

“This is a discussion about music, and no one’s putting forth any music,” Drake told the magazine. “Nobody told you that this was a bad idea, to engage in this and not have something?…It was weighing heavy on me. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get how there was no strategy on the opposite end. I just didn’t understand. I didn’t understand it because that’s just not how we operate.”

Read the (excellent) full story, here.