GQ landed the first real interview of the Nothing Was The Same media cycle. In it, not only does Drake discuss rap, love and Chris Brown, but also money, his security, family and talks at lengths about what goes into making his songs:
In one song off the new album, Drake delves into the pain of his parents’ split, but as always for Drake, it’s raw material—powerful, personal, and cautionary—reshaped as art. And it’s what makes Drake Drake: his willingness to go there and say it out loud, and in that way possess it. If it’s an impulse not wholly recognizable in rap, it suggests that perhaps Drake belongs on a slightly different continuum, one belonging, at least in spirit, to confessional poets or expressionist painters or indie bands like the xx, a band he loves. But, he says, his lodestar for the new work has been Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear, the 1978 double-album confessional chronicling the collapse of Gaye’s first marriage, described by one critic as “the sound of divorce…exposed in all its tender-nerve glory.”
“It’s so honest,” says Drake, who’s also been recording in Gaye’s old studio, Marvin’s Room. “He just puts it all out there.
Drake also revealed he was “four songs into the new album” at the time of this interview, including one which is titled “Tuscan Leather”:
Drake and 40 swivel at the same time and start tapping the keys of their laptops, cuing up the first track off of Nothing Was the Same, a song called “Tuscan Leather”—a title, Drake tells me, named for a Tom Ford fragrance that some say smells like a brick of cocaine.
The truth is I have no idea what to expect. The paradox of Drake is that he’s so multiple, he might write a love song sung by an Idol contestant (“Find Your Love”) or something so raunchy you can’t play it for kids (“Practice”). He could be rhyming about the kingdom of his material world, and then crooning about his spiritual state. He’s a mama’s boy who’ll cut you up, though his tough-guy posturing seems occasionally halfhearted because, after all, he seems so kind of…decent.
Now comes the music, in a sudden blast, like green light through fog, the first notes strange and dissonant, in a lurching 3/4 beat. The intro hurtles and whiplashes, and a woman’s voice, as if on helium, floats through the chaos, in the highest register, sorta funny and ghostly and beautiful. (It turns out to be a Whitney Houston sample.) The sound is an evocation of something that feels nostalgic and new, exuberant and menacing, at once. Which is when Drake’s voice breaks through, rapping, pumped up, spitting nails. Both inside and outside the song itself, he keeps repeating, How much time’s this nigga spending on the intro? How much time’s this nigga spending on the intro? It feels like bedlam.
A new project dropped today from Terumasa Hino and DJ Honda:
Terumasa Hino was born in 1942 in Tokyo City. He moved to New York in 1975 and worked with a who’s who of jazz. In 1989 Hino became the first Japanese artist to sign with the legendary esteemed American jazz label BLUE NOTE. Throughout the years Hino’s success in Japan and his career has been likened to that of Miles Davis; as they both experimented with jazz/rock fusion and also played the same instrument; the trumpet. In the past few years Terumasa Hino has teamed up with legendary hip-hop icon, dj honda and formed a new sound of fusion blending heavy beats and scratching.
The big homey Meyhem Lauren is back with a project to feed his loyal fans titled the ‘Raw Cashmere’ EP. Produced entirely by IceRocks Unlimited (who produced the Meyhem classic ‘Got The Fever’) this EP is available only from Chopped Herring Records. Meyhem Lauren is definitely on that grown man rap. No molly popping on [...]
Shady Records announced today that Slaughterhouse have officially begun work on their third studio album. What’s more, it’s being executive produced by Just Blaze. Joey, Royce, Joell and Crook will be holed up in New York this month to record their new LP, which will also feature production from J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League and araabMUZIK. The album, which serves as the follow-up to last year’s Welcome to: Our House, has yet to be scheduled with a release date.
Read the press release after the jump…
Slaughterhouse is back in the studio working on their next album. Read on for some exclusive details.
With the month of June comes Summer, and things naturally begin to heat up. Same thing is happening over here, as Slaughterhouse have officially begun recording their second album for Shady Records/Interscope. The Core Four are spending the month of June in a secret location in New York City cooking up something new with a team of producers including the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Araab Muzik and Just Blaze. Just Blaze is set to serve as the album’s Executive Producer.
The collaborative approach — everyone has been working in the studio at the same time with the hand selected top-notch production squad — has the House Gang feeling great about the album’s prospects. “I’m really excited about doing things a different way this time around”, says Joe Budden. This isn’t a send-tracks-around, and everyone-records-in-their-own-studio type of album. Joell Ortiz said that he is happily looking forward to the process as well: “The creative being creative! Fun, fun fun!”
Royce Da 5’9” added that “everyone is in the perfect space, mentally. It feels great to be back in the studio with the guys and I think that I can speak for everyone when I say that we just wanna make an album that will stand the test of time and mean sum’n to Hip-Hop.”
If Crooked I’s attitude towards this project is any indication of where it’s headed, prepare for an onslaught. “God of the Westcoast, I birthed these n!3@@& now I’m about to burry ‘em. Bloody Axe PigFace Slaughterhouse Mafia!”
There is no set release date yet for the album. Please check back with us here at ShadyRecords.com for further updates and stay engaged with us on our new #TrustShady Tumblr.
