Drake is the cover star for GQ‘s July 2013 issue, on newsstands now. But while he may look his unassuming self on the actual cover, he wasn’t shy to speak his mind in the interview. Drizzy addressed everything from the Chris Brown drama, his attitude to love and sex, the misconceptions around his “Started From the Bottom” story and how Nothing Was the Same will be the album “you listen to all summer.”

The cover story also reveals that Drake samples two legends in particular on his upcoming album: Whitney Houston and a speech Curtis Mayfield gave at a 1987 concert in Montreux saying, “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.”

On Chris Brown drama:

“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. …It’s embarrassing, the amount of media coverage. Two rappers fighting over the woman. He’s not even a rapper, but still, it’s the last way you want your name out there. It distracts from the music. But he’s made me the enemy, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay, I guess. …If I think about it too much, I feel it wrapping around my foot, like I get a feeling it could end really badly.”

Read more from Drake’s cover story after the jump…

On other rappers hating on him:

You notice they don’t criticize the music itself, though…I’m okay with that.

On being abstinent, sort of:

“You know the way fighters don’t fuck before the fight? Sometimes I feel like I’m so focused on training my body and getting my mind right to create this album that sex isn’t one of my main priorities. If someone is around that I know and trust, I’m down. But I’m not going to end up with some stranger at this party.”

On love:

“I had lunch the other day with someone I extremely look up to. Okay—I had lunch with Will Smith, and listening to him talk, it made me think I don’t know what love is. He said something profound. He said love is when you become one and you need that person. It’s not about wanting anymore, you need that person. Hearing that, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way. I’ve held women in very high regard almost to the point where I felt like I needed them for a very long time, but I don’t know if I comprehend it yet, and I’m okay with that.I’ve made a lot of music about love being the only thing I’m missing. I think this is the first album I’ve made saying, I’m okay. I’m enjoying it right now. Maybe this is my time to grind it out, make a run for it and add some memories with my boys.”

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 his upcoming album, 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.

I ain’t gonna lie: I want to be the one you listen to all summer.

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