Drake "I'm Not Signed to YounG Money"

Rap newcomer Drake recently spoke on outshining his television fame and denied being signed to Lil Wayne's Young Money label despite his close affiliation with the rapper's camp. Speaking on his pre-rap fame, Drake broke down his early media spotlight. "I been doin' this since I was about 13," he said in an interview. 'Degrassi' is bigger than what I?m doing right now, it really is. It's bigger than any Drake, Cudi, Wale, you know, up-and-coming rap sh*t. Like I was doing mall tours with 15,000 people...I was signing autographs for three, four hours...I'm not signed to Young Money but definitely Young Money is a family to me. I'm definitely YM affiliated, you know? I have the utmost love for everybody over there, the utmost respect. Mack Maine and Jae Millz, those are like brothers to me, you know? Nicki [Minaj]...And now that I'm in this position I?m just trying to get everything all the way straight." (Vibe) An illegal album called The Girls Love Drake, which features selections from the Toronto rapper's mixtape and other tracks, was released May 28th by a label called Canadian Money Entertainment and distributed by the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) on iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon. Drake's camp, which is still trying to clear the samples on So Far Gone and his two other mixtapes in hopes of selling them in stores, says it didn't authorize the release. If it hadn't been disqualified on the grounds that it wasn't confirmed as being an official album, The Girls Love Drake would have debuted this week at No. 101 on the Billboard 200, No. 16 on the Digital Albums chart and No. 1 on the Heatseekers tally. (Billboard)
While not signed to Young Money, Drake has reportedly been tagged to go on tour alongside Weezy next month.

We have learned that as of right now it is only Lil Wayne and Drake on the tour, no word on Jay-Z and Young Jeezy who were rumored to be joining as well. We also learned that the tour will begin in July this summer. No dates and venues have been announced but we can expect those soon. This information has been confirmed by Wayne's manager Cortez Bryant. We will be keeping you up-to-date on any news regarding the tour, as well as posting dates as they become available. Keep checking back. (New Lil Wayne)
In addition to crediting Wayne for his support in past interviews, Drake also recently shared his admiration for Kanye West.

"Kanye West shaped a lot of what I do," Drake said in an interview. "He has one of the best ears in music, period. He knows how to recognize great music that's not his. He knows how to utilize great sounds, great music. Before I met him I had the utmost respect for Kanye West, I'd even go as far as to say he was one of the most influential person, as far as a musician, that I had ever had in my life...We met in Hawaii, we didn't get to spend that much time together but when I did meet him, everything was cool. It was more in my mind that, 'All right, I can't wait to prove myself to this dude,' I wanna continue to work hard and prove to him that I'm worthy of him working with me. I think that's what the last few months have been about."