I was the guy who got Drake on that track. It was the introduction to Drake pretty much, no one knew who he was.

I remember when Nahright posted “Overdose On Life” and Eskay wrote something like, “Check out this new crazy track produced by Omen, with Travis from Gym Class Heroes, Mickey Factz and some Canadian dude named Drake.”

It was Omen’s song and Omen sent it to me first and then Drake put the chorus and his verse on it first.

And they sent the song to Dr. Dre and they flew Drake out and had him ghostwriting for Dre. This was like February ‘08.

Then I wrote my verse and Omen asked if I could get Trav on it.

I found out about Drake on Myspace in 2007. I thought he was dope then. He had a Trey Songz record and it was funny he had a Pusha T record. I was like, “yo this guy can rap.” I reached out to him and we were cool for a long time.

I caught a lot of flack for the skinny jeans. Now everybody is pretty much wearing them.

It’s like, “Damn, this is something that we influenced.” And when we first started people were not into it at all. Now it’s the norm.

I remember the day Rob Markman called me to be on the XXL Freshman ‘09 cover. I was sitting in the park.

I freaked out. That was a moment for me. My mom would ask me why I was collecting these hip-hop magazines, they aren’t doing anything for you in life, she would say.

Then when that cover came out and I brought it to her, she was like, “Wow.”

Sneakers were everything in high school, even the Fila Grant Hills. I didn’t have any of that.

My pops didn’t want to buy me any of that. He was just like, “You need to go to school just for school.”

Because he didn’t get me the Jordans, or Pippens, or Kidds, or Pennys or the Grant Hill— my favorite player was Shawn Kemp. So I had the Reebok Shawn Kemp Kamikazes.

I was 14 or 15 years old and hip-hop had taken over my life. I was listening to Bone Thugs so I could memorize them.

I would recite it at school just to recite it. No one understood what they were saying but I did it as homework.

From there I would take Jay Z’s lyrics and rewrite them to make them misogynistic just so I could get cheers at school.

And then I started to create my own lyrics.

This was the first rap that I ever wrote and the first song that I ever recorded in a studio. When I recorded that there were no Pro Tools, I was using reels. This is like 1997.

When I got the acapellas from the guy who produced it, it brought me back to that day. I was nervous as hell. I had my rhyme book, we did so many takes, but I got it out.

Even back then I was still using punches and metaphors. I thought it was cool to show people how long I’ve been doing this.

Clarks are shoes. And Clark Kent is Superman, and Superman’s arch-nemesis is General Zod.

I was so flustered that day at Sway, even though I got everything out. The real lyric is:

Fuck shoes can’t get with ‘em dog
So I got nothin’ but kicks like I’m missing my arms
Y-3s slippin' em on, fuck hard bottoms
I got a problem with Clarks like General Zod

That’s how it really goes, but I messed up out of 120 bars.

I’m a big Sub-Mariner fan. These are all underwater characters. Sub-Mariner is trying to find Nemo.

Aquaman is from DC, he’s at the boat depot.

Infamous is a video game character and title. “They’ll never get me,” is an infamous thing. Then Ecco and Willy is a dolphin and a whale.