When Drake released the song “Enough Said,” in which he collaborated with the late singer, Aaliyah, the Canadian rapper took on a lot of heat. Ne-Yo recently took the side of Drake in the ongoing debate over posthumous releases.

“I have to applaud Drake for even taking on something like that,” he told Hot 93.7/Hartford backstage at the MTV’s Video Music Awards. “[Drake] is like ‘I have a love and appreciation for what Aaliyah was and what she did, and I’m gonna do this. I’ve gotta applaud him for that. Hats off to Drake for that.”

Watch the entire interview here.

The singer also discussed his recent work with Pitbull for “Give Me Everything,” and shared some other collabos he’d like to work on.

“That lists is a mile long,” he said. “Theres a lot of people I respect, a lot of people I would like to see what the combination of what they do and what I do would come together and sound like.”

Crossing genres is an important part of the collabo equation for Ne-Yo, he said. 

“I pride myself on being the kind of artist that can play both sides of that game,” he stated. “I can do a song with Young Jeezy, and do a song with Calvin Harris, and both of them make sense.”

–Bill Sencio, Hot 93.7/ Hartford