THR: So at what point do you let a track go?
40: The day of. Like you ever stay up til 9 a.m. to finish a paper for school and go to school with no sleep? Its kind of like that. Literally. Like, up til the last minute. At some point, well set a date. Were in a really great position with Cash Money and Universal. We dont take instructions from anybody they really trust us they let us have our own creative process and do what we need to do and make our music. We dont deal with A&Rs, we dont deal with peoples opinions, we dont deal with producers or them bringing us song ideas ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Were very internal. We just decide at some point hey were getting close, this is when I think it should come out. We aim and strive for that date and we work tirelessly and change songs up until last minute and because Im mixing it and because Im producing a lot of it and because Im tracking a lot of it, or all of it, we have the ability to do anything at any moment. Drake knows he can call me anytime. And then of course Im sending it directly to New York and mastering and literally taking them from mastering and sending them to the plant the day thats gonna make the difference of the album getting pushed two weeks cause were not gonna make our manufacturing deadline. Its like that everytime.
THR: Wow. I think a lot of artists would kill to have that sort of relationship with their label.
40: Ive been in this business long enough and have worked with enough people to know that this is extremely rare and we are extremely blessed and very lucky. But of course, this is Drakes reality. People believe in him and they trust him. At the end of the day, these labels are coming to us for hits. Theyre not gonna tell him what to do, theyre looking at him to tell them what to do. For the most part, no ones bugging us. They just let us do our thing. Im sure if we start slipping up someone will knock on the door, but thankfully that hasnt happened yet.