Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late has done remarkable things since its release last week. The mixtape which went straight to retail sold 500k copies in the first week itself, shattered Spotify’s record for most streamed album in the debut week and made Drizzy the first rapper to top Billboard’s Artist 100 chart.
But there’s a lot more behind the scenes history to the project. Vice President of Datpiff.com, Kyle “KP” Reilly reveals that his outlet was originally in talks with Drake’s team to release it for free in collaboration with DJ Drama’s Gangsta Grillz brand but the label turned the idea down. This development happened just two-three weeks ago.
KP tells HHDX:
“Originally we were in talks to release it for free…and have DJ Drama host and even make it an official Gangsta Grillz…however the label was not in favor of that and they struck an agreement to release the project the retail route and it would count towards one of his albums. It was a mutual decision since he wanted to give it away. They [the label] said, ‘Hell no,’ not in those words, so they ‘agreed’ to do it this way as a middle ground and it would count towards his Cash Money deal album total. The label had zero input or creative control over If Youre Reading This Its Too Late.”