UPDATED 8:28 p.m. ET: Nickelus F has tweeted that some of the songs included in the notebook as listed by Nate D. Sanders Auctions are his. He notes that "Military Brat Freestyle" appears on his 2007 mixtape Cut the Check, "Light That Fire" became Room for Improvement's "AM 2 PM," and "Grind Freestyle" (which samples MF DOOM's "Accordion") is also his.
Complex has reached out to Nickelus F for comment. Here's his statement:
"Yea I mean I just found the Military Brat freestyle and Light That Fire lyrics being in there interesting because those were my songs. Now, Light That Fire was a song I had did and sent him to listen to and he ended up returning it to me months with a verse and new hook and it became AM2PM. So it’s probably his verse that he has written in there," Nickelus F told Complex. "The Military Brat he never got on. As for the other records the Grinding Freestyle was a joint of mine that I sent him where I did a quick lil freestyle over the MF DOOM Accordion beat and about a year later he sent me that joint back with a verse on it dumbing out."
"A Scorpios Mind is a joint he sent me to hop on, which came out. I worked with him on City is Mine and Do What You Do Too but when the official version of Do What You Do dropped my verse had been taken off. But all and all that’s a dope piece of history they have there! He was hungry and really wanted it back then."
See original story below.
Before Drake became a superstar, he was a young hopeful dropping a debut mixtape called Room for Improvement.
Drake dropped Room for Improvement in 2006 when he was still starring in Degrassi: The Next Generation. Drake's biggest fans will be happy to know that the notebook containing Drizzy's handwritten lyrics for the mixtape has been obtained by an auction house and is now up for grabs, as XXL point out.
Nate D. Sanders Auctions, who is in possession of Aubrey's blue Spiral-bound Hilroy-brand notebook, noted in the item's description that the lyrics were likely written in 2005. The notebook contains several songs that ended up on Room for Improvement including "Try Harder," "Special" (entitled ''Extra Special'' in the notebook), "Do What You Do," "A Scorpio's Mind," "City Is Mine," and "Bad Meaning Good."
The notebook also contains lyrics to songs that did not appear on the project, like "Friday," "Stay Up Late," "Grind Freestyle," "Military Brat Freestyle," "Held Down," "What I Keep Inside," "Less of a Man," "High School," and "Light That Fire."
Drake's notebook also contains scribbled notes to himself throughout the pages, like, "You Need: The Greatest Song Ever...Maxwell or D'Angelo Feature, André 3000 Produced Track, Indie Arie Feature, Usher Feature, Voyce Feature." He did collaborate with André 3000 in the track "The Real Her" from Take Care, and Voyce provided backup vocals for the Views tracks "Keep the Family Close" and "Views."
Bidding for the notebook starts at $8,000 and ends on June 28.
