Why Drake could never work with David Guetta
For all his successes in rap music, Drake has never shaken the criticism from purists that his sound is overly commercialised and poppy. But even he has his limits as to how straightforwardly commercial-sounding and accessible he is willing to go.
Back in 2012, in the wake of his second album, Take Care, becoming a genuine cultural phenomenon, the pressure was suddenly on for his next album to match what came before it. He pulled it off, more or less, with 2013’s Nothing Was the Same, which also proved to be massively popular, but that was by no means guaranteed to happen.
As plans were being made for his third album, Drake was keeping his ear to the ground for producers to bring on board. Production, for the most part, was taken care of by 40, in the end, with contributions from the likes of Boi-1da and Mike Zombie. But, during the planning stage, Drake was open to some more rogue shouts.
As he mentioned during a 2012 interview with NME, Drake was considering both Jamie xx and SBTRKT for his album. Neither of them ultimately ended up on Nothing Was the Same, but, for a time at least, Drake was minded to consider these slightly more leftfield choices of collaborator.
One person he was not interested in, however, was David Guetta, who was arguably the most famous producer in the world at the time. In theory, that would have been a perfect match. Arguably the biggest producer joining forces with arguably the biggest rapper, but Drake wasn’t having it.
“For me,” he said, “the David Guetta stuff just doesn’t work. I don’t really wanna go there.” Drake noted that, for some producers, the simple, Guetta-like style works for them.
“They feel in order to thrive internationally that they gotta do straightforward, four on the floor, David Guetta, Pitbull music,” as he put it.
But Drake didn’t want to go down that route. He wanted to work with producers who, to his mind, were more interesting. He’d prefer to approach “somebody like Jamie xx and tell him, ‘Look, I really wanna turn the club upside down, but I wanna do it with integrity, with soul.’”
Evidently, Drake didn’t perceive integrity or soul in the music of David Guetta. His detractors would likely level similar criticisms against him, but the rapper, in any case, seemed to think there was a difference between them.