Drake Gives Nickelus F His Flowers: 'Forever One Of My Idols'

Drake has given one of his early collaborators Nickelus F some recognition as one of his inspirations.

The Virginia rapper recently sat down for an interview with The Floaters to discuss all things about his career.

In a clip posted on Instagram, Nickelus was asked his opinion about people criticizing Drake’s lyrics recently. He replied by saying the superstar’s pen was still “sharp.”

Drizzy came across the video and gave Nickelus F his flowers in the comments.

“Forever one of my idols,” he wrote, with Nickelus responding with a prayer emoji.

In the full interview, Nickelus F spoke more about his history with Drake and the skillset he possesses.

“Drake was really into the raps, just like we were,” he said. “That’s why we connected and how he connected. We were into the same sort of raps. And even still to this day, I think his pen is still sharp. He’s really a rapper, yo. He really does that.

“It’s just what goes on with the industry. Honestly, it’s like a certain era that kinda holds onto things a certain way. Eventually, you just realize music is music. If the song is good, the song is good. The rappers know. Rappers’ rappers. We know who’s really dicing it up and who’s doing whatever.

“And so yeah, he really gives it up. Because you gotta think about it, when he gets in that bag, like that rapper bag, there’s nobody else in the industry that’s really rapping like that.”

Nickelus F went on to explain how he met Drake after he reached out on MySpace.

“That was the MySpace era, this is post-mixtape era,” he said. “The internet is still like the Wild Wild West, right? That was MySpace, and what did you have, like top eight or whatever it was?” he said.

“I think I had put out a project at the time and he had rocked with it. He hit me up and we ended up doing a couple of joints back-and-forth through email and put them on the net and people really took to them joints.”

He also talked about people attempting to reach Drake through him, and how many people won’t let go of their early relationship together.

“You got your people who will try to go through you to get to him. Of course you get a lot of that,” he said. “You know, what’s weird is there’s a big sector of my fans specifically, they don’t wanna let that go.

“I wouldn’t even just say my fans though. I was gonna say my fans always just wanted to see us work together. But he has fans in different generations because he did it for long enough to the point where there are new fans that grew up and got into his music at a different point in his career, after the earlier days.”

Watch the discussion at the 18:40 mark below.

During an interview with Complex in 2010, Nickelus F spoke more about what made him want to link up with Drake.

“It was a random Myspace email,” he said at the time. “He said he liked my music and wanted to do a record. It was the ‘Money’ record.

“I had no idea who he was. But I checked his screen and saw he had a lot of followers, and I listened to his music. He could spit, so I was down for it. So I did the record and it came out good and we did more records. And we always kept in touch after that.”

Drake previously gave Nickelus F credit for being “one of the most gifted people” at “finding flows” during a separate 2010 interview with Complex.

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“Me and F worked together at a younger stage in my life, but I can’t really say that I all-the-way utilized Nickelus for anything on So Far Gone,” he said.

“F’s one of the most gifted people I know at finding flows. I like to write for myself, though. He’s helped me before, just not on a consistent basis. But yeah, F is dope.”

Drake and Nickelus F collaborated on a number of songs, including “Money (Remix)” from Drizzy’s debut mixtape Room for Improvement in 2006.