Drake had the "greatest freedom" possible when making his latest album.
The Canadian rapper released Take Care late last year and it debuted at number one on the Billboard album chart.
He worked closely with his friend Noah '40' Shebib on the record, with Drake's record company happy to let the pair lay down tracks on their own. Engineer-and-producer 40 thinks that's why Take Care was such a hit.
"We get to do what we want: we don't have to clear it with the A&Rs or anybody. We are our own A&Rs," he told MTV News. "And that's the greatest freedom you can possibly have in this business."
The two music stars had worked together before. 40 was involved with So Far Gone, the 2009 mix-tape which launched Drake's career. They also teamed up for his first record Thank Me Later, but neither had anything particular in mind when they started work on Take Care.
"I can't sit there and tell you that anybody made any conscious decisions to the extent of, 'Oh, we're gonna make this feel of an album,'" 40 explained. "We really just make records and cut music until someone says, 'That's it: You can't make any more music; you gotta stop.'"
Drake and 40 work well together and the producer prides himself on helping the rapper get his message across. Drake is adamant all his tunes must mean something to him and he likes to be involved in every aspect of album making, which 40 respects.
"What ends up happening a lot of times with our records is that, because I can do a lot of things in the studio, whether it be play instruments or produce or edit or run Pro Tools or edit vocals, whatever the case may be, I help him get out his ideas," the producer said. "I think that's the goal of any good producer, is to make sure the artist is delivering what they want."
© Cover Media