Drake and Future's Surprise Mixtape Probably Isn't Real
There's no denying that Drake and Future are the most popular rappers right now. Here’s a quick rundown of their accomplishments this year.
Drake
- If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late (his surprise mixtape album) went Platinum in August
- OVO Sound Radio on Beats 1 is turning into a regular Saturday activity, as there’s plenty of exclusives to hear, sometimes from Drizzy himself
- He beat Meek Mill, roasted him at OVO Fest and rocked the stage with Kanye West and Pharrell
- His diss track “Back to Back” has turned into a club anthem
Future
- He fed the streets with more free mixtapes after Monster, including 56 Nights
- Dirty Sprite 2 is his first album to debut at No. 1 with his best sales week yet
- He’s promised another album this year, which means the turn up continues
So Thursday night’s excitement on Twitter that a rumored joint mixtape would be dropping sometime today is fair. As with any rumor in hip hop, it might’ve started when Angela Yee accidently spilled info that Drake and Future are collaborating on something new earlier this week on The Breakfast Club. Or the more plausible scenario was that someone tweeted that their secret tape was coming, likely this guy, which sent Twitter into a frenzy.
Then a supposed fan-made artwork (see: below) hit the web showing Drake’s signature owl dripped in purple, which made us believe our wildest dreams could come true. A few insiders like DJ Skee and Ryan Phillippe pushed the conversation forward with more hints, and Drake’s homie OB O'Brien allegedly uploaded the leaked artwork to his Instagram, but quickly took it down.
It’s mid-afternoon and there’s no Drake and Future mixtape. We aren’t digging for a working download link or live-tweeting the awesomeness of how many songs they decided to bless us with. That’s because this mixtape probably isn’t real.
To be perfectly clear, Drake and Future do work together. With songs like “Tony Montana,” “Love Me,” “Fo Real,” "DnF” and “Never Satisfied” in their hit-making stash box, these guys f**k with each other musically. The two have recently gone on The Jungle Tour, brought each other out during big concerts and just released a video for “Where Ya At,” in which they're both featured. Real talk, there are a lot of opportunities for them to hit the studio and knock out a few bangers. Realistically, it’s just not possible for them to drop a surprise mixtape without changing the course of collaborative projects forever. Why, you ask? Because they’d actually be the ones to keep their word and put it out.
Remember when Timbaland posted on Instagram the idea of a Kendrick Lamar, Drake and J. Cole album produced by him, Noah "40" Shebib, Pharrell, Dr. Dre and Kanye West? Its sounds amazing in theory, but it would never happen. Same goes for Kendrick and Cole’s joint album, Nas and DJ Premier’s album and Beyoncé and Jay Z’s album. All of these sound great on paper, but unless these artists are dedicating the time and effort (which means really investing in it just like Kanye and Jay did for Watch the Throne), we aren’t gonna see any of these mind-blowing collaborative albums at all.
For Future and Drake, they might be better off just collaborating on one-off songs together. While it sounds dope to possibility bump an hour-plus worth of Future/Drake songs this weekend, most hip hop fans play their albums on a regular basis already. It’s almost overkill to have them release something because then the rap game would be oversaturated with Future and Drake music. Plus, Drake continues to release new music pretty frequently (“Tell Your Friends” (Remix) anyone?) and Future’s DS2 is still pretty fresh for people curious about his hype.
Could they break the Internet today with a new mixtape? Sure. Just don’t get your hopes up.
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(Photos from Left: Andrew Chin/Getty Images, Prince Williams/WireImage)
