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Drake On the Evolution of Mixtapes (Video)

blame it on Shake April 26, 2010

Drake sits down with Sway to discuss his personal thoughts on today’s mixtape game.

“I think that when creating a mixtape, you have to approach it with a selfless mind-set,” Drake told us. “A mixtape can’t be the songs that don’t make your album, or songs that aren’t good enough to make your album make your mixtape — unless you’re that good. There aren’t that many people that are that good. I’m not that good. That mixtape [So Far Gone] is me working my hardest. It wasn’t ‘Oh, here are the songs I’m gonna give away to you ’cause I have better songs coming.’ A mixtape has become an album.

“Before, I remember people used to be in the studio cutting songs, and they would be like, ‘Oh, that song is OK. I’ll just put it on my mixtape,’ ” he added. “Now a mixtape is an actual tool. It’s a format you need. You don’t necessarily need it, but it can be useful. Like with Fab and the other guys, I know they do a lot of rapping on other guys’ beats. It’s hard to tour like that, as incredible as it may be. Now Wayne, when the No Ceilings set comes on, it’s ridiculous. It’s hard to rap over other people’s songs and have it be timeless. With So Far Gone, when I did flip other people’s songs, half the time people didn’t know what song it was. I tried to pick stuff that was new or rare or just like an album cut. But yeah, man, if I use somebody else’s beat, I try to make a song out of it.”

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