Drake new album/mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late on iTunes: But is surprise release an album or a mixtape?

Drake Just Dropped a Ton of New Music—but Is It an Album or a Mixtape?

Drake Just Dropped a Ton of New Music—but Is It an Album or a Mixtape?

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Slate's Culture Blog
Feb. 13 2015 9:48 AM

Drake Just Pulled a Beyoncé (Sort Of) and Dropped a New Album (Sort Of)

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Drake just dropped a ton of new music. But is it an album or a mixtape?

Photo by Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images for Time Warner Cable

Late Thursday night the megapopular rapper Drake surprised music fans all over the world when without warning he dropped … something. It’s called If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, but what is it? A new mixtape? A new album? Everyone definitely agrees that it is a “new collection of music,” a “project,” and a “surprise release,” but no one knows what to call it, exactly.

Those who call it a “new album” (BuzzFeed, Spin, TIME, The Verge, and Billboard, to name a few) might point out that it’s for purchase on iTunes, and not available for free, like most mixtapes. (They might also know that calling it a “new album,” instead of a “new mixtape,” could bring them more clicks and shares.) Those who call it a “mixtape” (Vice, the Washington Post, Complex) would point out that Drake himself, in a thank you note about the release, calls it a “tape.” The album also includes “Used to,” a track that previously appeared on Lil Wayne’s Sorry for the Wait 2 mixtape, as Wondering Sound points out, along with the previously shared song “6 God.”

Whatever you wanna call it, the new thingy contains 17 songs and 69 minutes of music, and you can buy it on iTunes right here. Most fans don’t care what you call it—they’re just excited:

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Here’s the tracklist with production credits, via Drake’s site:

tracklist_Drake

Update: You can now also stream If You‘re Reading This It’s Too Late on Spotify, below.