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Drake has reflected on releasing music during the current coronavirus pandemic, saying musicians need to “figure out what people need”.
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Read more: Drake – ‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes’ review: business as usual on rapper’s forgettable stop-gap release
The rapper was speaking to friend and collaborator Lil Wayne on the latter’s Apple Music radio show Young Money Radio when he made the comments.
After discussing fatherhood and how their respective families were doing, the conversation turned to Drake’s new mixtape ‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes’, which he surprise-released on Friday (May 1). The Canadian rapper began by explaining how the idea to put out a new release came about, saying: “It was just a lot of joints that sort of were floating around, songs that people just kept asking me about or for. With the whole pandemic thing that’s going on, we’ve been playing more music on [Instagram] Live.
“So there was joints that got played on Live and then there was a couple leak situations that happened a little earlier in the year. For a second the shit felt like ’09 or 2010 or some shit, I couldn’t believe how much music was leaking – not just from me, from every artist.”
He continued to directly address his decision to release a full-length release as opposed to one track, saying: “It’s an interesting time for us all, as musicians, to figure out how this works and what people need. And I just felt like people would appreciate maybe a body of something to listen to as opposed to just one isolated song.”
‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes’ features collaborations with Future, Young Thug, Playboi Carti and Chris Brown, as well as the previously released tracks ‘Toosie Slide’, ‘When To Say When’ and ‘Chicago Freestyle’.
In a two-star review, NME said of the mixtape: “The main problem with this latest drop isn’t that it’s bad, more that it’s simply unremarkable, and quite frankly needless […] For the most part, ‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes’ is business as usual for Drake, who plays it safe and falls back on familiar terrain.”
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