In May 2010, Drake released “Find Your Love,” a promotional single for his eventual July debut studio album Thank Me Later. Before the LP would eventually hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 though, with other hits like “Over” and “Miss Me (feat. Lil Wayne),” “Find Your Love” would be Drake’s first song ever to reach the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
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The song truly paved the way for Drake to become the chart-topping superstar that he is today, over a decade later. With its addicting I better find your loving, I better find your heart hook and Kanye West and No I.D. produced pop beat, “Find Your Love” was a perfect introduction into the mainstream for the Toronto singer-rapper. But, did you know that the song was originally meant to be performed by a different R&B star?
During an interview with Complex in 2011, the aforementioned “Find Your Love” producer, No I.D., spoke at length about many of the hits he had produced in his career thus far, such as “Run This Town” by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Rihanna and “Retrospect for Life” by Common and Lauryn Hill. Within this conversation, he also revealed that “Find Your Love” was first written to be a Rihanna song, but Drake heard the demo while working on Thank Me Later with No I.D. and West.
“That was actually a Rihanna record,” No I.D. told Complex. “Drake came to the studio in LA for more music. I was already on the album as I cut a record with Ye for it, but I was like ‘Why not do more? Let’s work.’ So we were talking, as I like to talk to artists before we work. Drake heard Rihanna’s version and was like, ‘I really want to use this record,’ and I was like, ‘Man, ask her!’ (Laughs).”
It would appear that Drake did, in fact, ask Rihanna for permission to record “Find You Love,” and she granted it to him. This was quite a generous gift from Rihanna too, considering she was already one of the biggest pop stars in the industry at the time with smash hits like “Umbrella,” “Disturbia,” and “Don’t Stop the Music.” But, evident on their November 2010 collaboration “What’s My Name?”, it’s clear Rih and Drake had a good working relationship to where Rih would be willing to lend him a song.
“So he ended up with the beat and then when he recorded it, he was singing, and I was like, ‘Word? Singing? You’re really rolling with this, huh?’ Drake took it and made his own magic record,” No I.D. said.
Rihanna and Drake would go on to collaborate more on songs like “Take Care” (2011), “Work” (2016), “Too Good” (2016), and “Lemon (Remix)” with N.E.R.D. (2018).
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