'It's only gonna help me, not hurt me. So I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback from everyone,' Drizzy says of the 'Take Care' premature arrival.
- Nov 8, 2011
AceShowbiz - Unlike some other artists who are furious when their materials leak, Drake is quite the opposite. In an interview with Billboard recently, the "Proud of You" rapper said, "I look forward to leaks -- knock on wood. I shouldn't probably, but I do." He believed that "a reasonable leak" would help boost the album sales, instead of bringing them down.
"I think that giving people the opportunity to judge before they go and buy, I think that can only help," he said when giving his opinion about the positive impact of leaks on fellow MC J. Cole's debut album "Cole World: The Sideline Story". The album, which arrived on the internet a week earlier, did perform well on Billboard Hot 200 by landing at the first position in its first week.
Drizzy reasoned, "There's a loyal fan base that's gonna go and support you just based off the fact that they want to own a copy of your material, and they know what it means to give you that one sale, and they hope that there's another hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred thousand people that are gonna do the same thing."
He continued his explanation, "And then there's genuinely the people who heard it that night and were like, 'Yo, I need to support this, I need to go buy it, I need to own this.' His [Cole's] leak was like 10 days before, seven days before. I think those leaks are very beneficial to artists who have the product, who can reel people in with their music as opposed to turning people off."
Switching the subject to his own album leaks, Drizzy said he felt grateful enough that the leaks happened a week before the official release, instead of months prior. The Young Money MC credited Noah "40" Shebib "for being a great producer, musician, engineer and protector of music." The rapper gushed, "He set us up a system for this album that I think worked very well."
Drizzy added, "We've suffered no leaks. I've heard rumor of a couple records floating around out there that people are just listening to for their own personal enjoyment, like early demos and s**t like that. But most of the records that they're talking about are features, so you know, usually when you start sending to other camps, stuff gets a little messy."
"40 protects the music really well, and I think God willing I get like the same thing I'm talking about, like a 10 day leak. And that's something I'd be extremely excited about because I feel like if people get the opportunity to live with the music for a week before they go buy it, it's only gonna help me, not hurt me. So I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback from everyone -- that's gonna be an exciting night when it comes out."
"Take Care" is going to come out in the United States on November 15. The songs which surfaced early included the title track which has Rihanna on the hook, "Lord Knows" which features Rick Ross, and The Weeknd-assisted track "Crew Love".
