How did Drake get a Michael Jackson feature?
When news broke that Michael Jackson was going to appear on Drake’s fifth album Scorpion, many people assumed that MJ’s appearance would come in the form of a sample from one of his old, previously known songs. But that’s not quite how it played out.
Jackson died in 2009, nine years before Scorpion came out, so, obviously, it’s not like Drake could have gone into the studio with Jackson. The MJ vocals that were used on his album, then, had been recorded a long time beforehand. They had never previously been heard, so, from the perspective of the public, this was technically new music from Michael Jackson.
The vocals appeared on the Scorpion song ‘Don’t Matter to Me,’ in which Drake and Jackson sing about a failed relationship. It closes with MJ lamenting, “Girl, your love, you think you broke it / I’m leavin’ you today, you broke my heart.”
These vocal recordings originated from a session from way back in 1983, when Jackson went into the studio alongside the Canadian-American artist Paul Anka. Anka, who is 84 today, is known for his own hit songs, like ‘Diana’ and ‘Lonely Boy,’ but he also hits for major stars like Frank Sinatra and Tom Jones.
Anka also wrote music with Michael Jackson, although the fruits of their shared labour would only ever become known to fans after Jackson’s death. The song ‘This Is It’ came out four months after his death, while another track, ‘Love Never Felt So Good,’ followed in 2014. ‘Don’t Matter to Me’ was the third of his Jackson collaborations to be heard by the public.
All of Anka’s Jackson songs had been recorded in the ’80s, but it was ‘Don’t Matter to Me’ that, arguably, caused the greatest stir, given that it was to be featured on Drake’s album. Anka, speaking to The Ottawa Citizen about it in May 2018, declared that he was “under a code of silence” regarding the project, but he did, ultimately, shed some light on how it came together.
“There was apprehension when we got together,” he admitted. “You want to know people and you want to like them. I’m at the stage in my life that I don’t want to waste my time, [but Drake is] a good human being.”
Anka was full of praise for Drake and his team, and, as he told it, they worked together with ease. “The people around him are very smart, and he’s very smart,” he said. “I knew that the component I brought to the table that he would, as I told him, break the code, and it did. It just came together with him creatively and intellectually. We’ve got a great record.”
As for Drake, he had previously spoken about his love for Michael Jackson, so this track must have been thrilling for him. “Michael Jackson, for me, was one of the first times that I really realized the power of an entertainer,” he told MTV shortly after MJ’s death. “I remember having Moonwalker on cassette and I remember how religiously I used to watch it. Because I used to feel like, as a kid, this was the most amazing place to escape to. It was that world he created.”