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Akon has revealed that he turned down the chance to sign Drake in the mid-2000s, because he thought he “sounded like Eminem“.
In a new interview with VladTV, Akon spoke about how he was sent a Drake demo ahead of the release of his breakout single, ‘Best I Ever Had’.
“[Canadian rapper] Kardinal Offishall brought him to me back in like 2005 I think it was,” Akon explained. “Or was it ’04? It was right before ‘Best I Ever Had’ blew up because it was like more mixtape-ish.
“And at the time, believe it or not, Drake sounded more like Eminem. With that demo that I heard? He was sounding more like Em. But I think that was around the time when… That’s every artist developing. You can see the difference between that demo and ‘Best I Ever Had.’ It was completely different.”
Akon added: “That’s when Kardi was like, ‘Nigga, I told you this nigga was [gonna] be the shit.’ I said, ‘Well shit, reach out!’ He said you can but the slowest bid right now is a million.’ I said, ‘Shit, I ain’t got a million dollars.'”
Drake recently shared new single ‘Laugh Now Cry Later’ with Lil Durk, which appears on his forthcoming album ‘Certified Lover Boy’.
It was recently revealed that the rapper failed to trademark ‘Certified Lover Boy’ ahead of the album’s release. A new report says that Drake’s lawyer attempted to secure the copyright for the title as far back as February, attempting to take control of the phrase for music recordings, TV, movie and live events and clothing.
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