Drake may still be basking in the success of his fourth studio album, Views , which recently reclaimed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart for its tenth nonconsecutive week, but it looks like Drake is already eager to get back in the studio after announcing his plans to record a new mixtape during a stop in Kansas City for his “Summer Sixteen Tour” on Saturday.
The revelation came approximately halfway through the rapper’s set for the highly anticipated tour, where Drake paused to give a brief speech to his Kansas City fans by urging them to “spread love” and “good energy” amid the ongoing civil unrest and racial injustice in the United States, Complex UK reports.
In a video captured by concertgoers, Drake can be heard telling the crowd, “I want you to protect yourselves and each other. When I go and work on this new mixtape and come back to Kansas City and I drop that s***, I wanna see everybody in this motherf***** boy!”
Drake says he’s gonna go work on a new mixtape???? pic.twitter.com/oRGQRrLiu5
— DJ Akademiks (@IamAkademiks) July 24, 2016
While there’s currently no word on whether Drake’s new mixtape will be a follow-up to 2015’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late or if the “Child’s Play” rapper has plans to team up with Future for another installment of What A Time To Be Alive , other rumors have suggested that Drake may be teaming up with Gucci Mane for the duo’s long-awaited joint-album collaboration.
Earlier this month, producer Xavier “Zaytoven” Dotson sparked rumors of an impending Drake-Gucci Mane collab after he revealed that the duo had discussed the idea of working on a project together during an interview with All Hip Hop .
Speaking on his work with Gucci Mane for the rapper’s new album, Zaytoven explained, “We were working on Gucci’s album, and Drake just came through. We were talking a little bit about working on a project. We were thinking about working on a project with Gucci and Drake.”
“He said, ‘I was rapping on one of your beats a couple of days ago.’ That kind of sparked our conversation, and we started talking about what we’re going to do in the future,” Zaytoven continued. “We got one, maybe two, [Drake features] for [Future’s upcoming album] Beast Mode 16 . One for sure.”
However, with Zaytoven having also recently mentioned to XXL that the Drake and Gucci Mane project would most likely be “a small EP,” some fans aren’t convinced that Drake’s upcoming mixtape will serve as the long-awaited Drake and Gucci collab after all.
People are saying that the Drake tape will be with Gucci. Thats not true because the project with Gucci is an EP, not mixtape. More #IYRTITL
— Tarrique (@Tloading1) July 24, 2016
The news comes just days after Drake, alongside “Summer Sixteen Tour” co-headliner, Future, made a surprise appearance at Gucci Mane’s “Gucci and Friends Homecoming Concert” at Fox Theatre in Atlanta.
The concert brought together some of the industry’s best to perform a medley of Gucci’s greatest hits, including surprise appearances from 2 Chainz, Fetty Wap, and Young Dolph to name a few, before concluding the show with Gucci’s recently released track, “First Day Out Tha Feds,” Billboard reports.
Drake and Future didn’t disappoint during their surprise performance for Gucci’s show, with Future storming the stage to perform “March Madness” before bringing Drake out to perform their 2015 hit, “Jumpman,” towards the end of the set. Naturally, Drake and Gucci teamed up for a performance of their new collab, “Back on Road,” which dropped via Drake’s OVOSound Radio program back in June, just weeks after Gucci was released from prison.
While it looks like we’ll just have to wait for more information on Drake’s upcoming mixtape, it doesn’t appear that the “One Dance” rapper is showing any signs of slowing down this summer.
What do you think of Drake’s plans to drop a new mixtape?
[Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images]