Drake‘s album art for Nothing Was The Same got some pretty mixed reviews online and spawned a new wave of sacrilegious Drizzy memes, so he took some time at the VMAs to explain the meaning behind Kadir Nelson’s oil painting artwork. He also specified he wants stores to display the albums back-to-back so that Baby Drake is always staring at Adult Drake, never ever breaking eye contact.

“When you go to the store, you’ll see the full painting,” said Drizzie. “When it’s positioned on the shelf at whatever store you go to, if they do it as I’ve asked, you’ll see that it’s a child version of myself staring at myself now.”

“At the end of the day, that’s an oil painting by Kadir. It’s not just a photo of me posted up– you can get that anywhere. You can pick up a magazine and see pictures of me. I wanted to give people something that they’d be like, ‘I’ll never forget this right here.’ And it’s vibrant and there’s something about it that captures you, and I think that’s kinda how this album sounds. Not to say that it’s ‘light’ by any means. The cover is sort of a daytime sky, so it’s not to say the music reflects it sonically in that sense, but it has a deeper meaning to me, for sure.”

Nothing Was The Same is due out on September 24th.