Drake Not Worried About Album Leak: ‘It’s Only Gonna Help Me’

When Drake's LP 'Take Care' leaked online on Sunday (Nov. 6) nearly a week before it's initial Nov. 15 release date, you would expect the Canadian rapper-crooner to have a hissy-fit over it. Not so. In fact, Drizzy predicted that his album would get bootlegged online.

In an interview with Billboard, the 'Headlines' rapper was anticipating that 'Take Care' would eventually leak on the Internet -- much to his benefit. "I look forward to leaks -- knock on wood. I shouldn't probably, but I do," he said. "If it's a reasonable leak, I look forward to it. The thing about 40 (producer Noah "40" Shebib), as well as being a great producer and great musician, he's also an incredible, incredible engineer and protector of our music."

"He set us up a system for this album that I think worked very well. We've suffered no leaks. 40 protects the music really well, and I think, God willing, I get like the same thing I'm talking about, like a 10 day leak. And that's something I'd be extremely excited about because I feel like if people get the opportunity to live with the music for a week before they go buy it, it's only gonna help me, not hurt me. So I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback from everyone -- that's gonna be an exciting night when it comes out."

Historically, album leaks usually don't impede first-week sales. According to Billboard, J. Cole's debut LP 'Cole World: A Sideline Story' leaked online a week early but still came in at No. 1 with over 200,000 copies sold. So while the early online circulation of Drake's 'Take Care' album is unfortunate, we do expect it to still debut at the top of the album chart.

Fan reactions to the collection have been mixed. It would be interesting to see how fans' intital impressions of 'Take Care' calculates into them actually buying the album.