In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Drake has talked the sound of Take Care in detail. He has also spoken about his expected release strategy, how many tracks we can expect on the album, Stevie Wonder collaboration, his close team and more. Take Care is due out on October 24th, his birthday.
I know you can’t confirm producers and features yet since the album isn’t done. But I have read that Stevie Wonder’s a role on the album as a writer. Am I right?
Less writing and more music. The only person I really wrote with is Abel. We have a bond with words. Getting the right words is like a euphoric feeling. There are a lot of records that we collaborated on. With Stevie it was a musical thing. I had a song that’s very powerful, it’s called “Doing It Wrong,” and Stevie boosted it to another level. 40 produced it, but Stevie has a solo on it that he plays. It’s a great piece of music.Specifically, what did he bring to the record?
He brought life to it. I was only trying to use extremely strong R&B songs on this album if I’m going to use R&B at all. Before I’d have scattered interludes and songs where I’m experimenting with things. Here I wanted to get back to “Brand New,” “Bria’s Interlude” days. It’s going to be really tight writing and s— that’s sexy as f—. That’s my thing. I’m going to do the type of R&B I’m good at. With Stevie it’s hard for me to explain. It’s an incredible thing I witnessed that night. He heard a song that he saw some potential in and he added some key pieces that made it come to life. I’ve never played a song for people and they’ve cried and gone into their own private zone in their mind where they’re really thinking about some situations that hit home. And this song has done that for me. I’ve never seen that before. I’ve heard stories where it’s like “So and so cried when they heard this.” And I’d be like, “Yeah, okay, cool.” [Laughs] But I’ve seen people tear up listening to this song that me and Stevie did. Other than that, I just played him music for approval. That’s always reassuring, to be able to play Stevie Wonder music and have him say that it’s incredible. I think me and Stevie immediately formed a relationship where he wants to see me do well. He’s expressed to me adamantly that he wants to see me succeed. He wants to see me on the moon. It’s boosted my confidence.
Read the full interview here. He also gives a shout out to RapRadar‘s Elliott Wilson.