Drake Talks The Direction of 'Take Care,' Possible Collabo Projects With Lil Wayne and Rick Ross

Drizzy Drake blessed Entertainment Weekly with some phone time

as he put the finishing touches on his forthcoming sophomore album, Take Care.

EW: Rap has become like fast food. Fans want it quickly and a lot of it. It’s only been a year since Thank Me Later and your fans seem to be starving for Take Care. Do you think they’ve forgotten that artists need life experiences to craft their art?
DRAKE: Yeah! You’ve got to live, man. Exactly. I remember when artist used to take, like, four years to make an album. Usher used to disappear for three years. It took Justin Timberlake a really long time to craft Justified. Even Beyoncé’s albums are spanned three years apart. You’ve got to live, man. And now we’ve sort of birthed and encouraged this generation of instant gratification. Where it’s like “The Weeknd’s about to release his new mixtape on Twitter and I can get it right away with the click of a button.” He just released House of Balloons a couple of months ago and they’re already like, “We need new s—! You’re taking too long.” It’s crazy, man.

I really hope that there’s people who sit with the music and drive to it and just really soak it in—not just run back to the computer and demand more. It’s important for our generation to know that it’s okay to take some time. It’s okay if an album takes a year or two to make.  That just means it’s probably going to be better than if they took two months and released it.

That’s why I felt like with the Thank Me Later process I was almost trying to create some stories for myself to rap about because everything was going so fast. I was in such demand at the time that I was almost disconnecting with what was going on around me. It was kind of hard to tap into the psyche of myself. I could still make great songs. But it was hard to give people a huge part of Aubrey at that time. I didn’t have that much going on other than work. For this album I spent a lot of time in Toronto. I’ve been here for the longest time since my career started. I’ve been here for like four months now, just seeing people I know, seeing my family, seeing friends, going out, driving in the city again. It’s incredible. I think words are something I’m eager for people to hear. That’s why I’m not doing any listening sessions. I really don’t want your first impression to be from some—and no offense to you obviously—from some writer that sees it through one set of eyes and ears and then the whole world goes and forms an opinion based off that article. I want people to get it all on the same day. Even if it leaks, I want people to hear it together, as opposed to reading an in depth article about every song. I don’t people to know what to expect. There’s a lot of shocking sonic music on this album.

What do you think of how Jay-Z and Kanye West released Watch the Throne? They did a couple of exclusive sessions. I went to the first one. And they kept the album from leaking by going straight to iTunes.
With Jay and with Watch the Throne, I’m so glad that it came out. As artists, we all need extra motivation. And I feel like in these last 30 days, that album is going to make me go 10 times harder from just, you know, hearing all the bars and all the sounds.

Have you thought of adopting their release approach?
I think with the Jay and ‘Ye thing, that was their approach—releasing it exclusively to digital, and doing the listening parties, and getting everybody involved and excited. I think that it was a brilliant approach. Do I necessarily think that Jay or ‘Ye would do that for a solo project? No. Do I think that Jay would release exclusively to digital and, like, play all of his music off a solo album to be dissected by critics? No. I’ve discussed doing projects with is obviously Lil Wayne. And one of the people of the people I enjoy rapping with most in this business is Rozay [Rick Ross]. Me and him have talked about potentially doing something after our albums comes out. I just love making songs with him. Every time we make a song it just seems to be something I love listening to after the fact when I’m in my car.