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The Game tells HipHopDX about getting Nas' blessing for his 'Drillmatic' album title and offering the name to Lil Durk first.

Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic | Hippolyte Petit/Getty Images | Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images The Game Talks Nas Co-Signing 'Drillmatic' Album Title & Lil Durk Having It First Published on:Jul 8, 2022, 4:01 AM by 10 EXCLUSIVE The Game raised a few eyebrows earlier this year when he announced his new album is called Drillmatic: Heart vs. Mind, a title that nods to both Nas landmark 1994 debut and the popular Hip Hop sub-genre thats more synonymous with Chicago, London and New York than his hometown of Compton. But as The Game revealed in a recent interview with HipHopDX, he made sure to get the blessing of both Nas and Chicago drill star Lil Durk before settling on the name. Originally, I gave Drillmatic to Durk because hes from the Chi and it has the whole drill thing, he explained. I text Durk like, Yo, call your next album Drillmatic. And he was like, Yo, thats fire. And then two years passed and he didnt call nothing Drillmatic so I was like, Ima reel that back in.' A post shared by HipHopDX (@hiphopdx) While The Games mid-2000s mainstream breakthrough was overseen by Dr. Dre, Drillmatic: Heart vs. Mind finds him partnering with another West Coast producer, Hit-Boy, who has become Nas go-to collaborator in recent years. It was during an early Drillmatic session at Hits studio where Game bumped into the Queensbridge MC and secured his approval for his new album. Hit-Boy hit me on January 1 and he said, Whatchu doing? And I was like, Shit, Im smoking. And he was like, We should do an album,' he recalled. So I pulled up to his studio, we did three songs that day, three songs the next day, three songs the next day and we had nine. Hes like, We need a title. I was like, Drillmatic. And then Nas was in the room the day after, on the fourth day, working on music with Hit. I ran the title by him and he blessed it, and so then I ran with it. Because I dont want to step on no toes, especially not with people I look up to. So yeah, we got Nas blessing, we started to run it and then it took on a life of its own and now were here. July 6, 2022 As the title suggests, The Games mission with Drillmatic is to bridge the gap between the Illmatic era of Hip Hop that raised him and the contemporary sounds of the drill wave while adding his own flavor to the mix, of course. Drill is now. All these kids, its drill this, drill that and so I gotta get they attention because I want the new school to understand my school, we can coexist, he explained. Also, when you hear me on a drill beat, its gonna be a message in it. Thats why my album is called Drillmatic: Heart vs. Mind, because everyday we wake up, we feel indifferent sometimes. We dont wake up everyday feeling 100 percent. Some days I wake up and Im happy and I love the world, and other days I wake up and Im very angry with things that are going on. Every single day is a different challenge for every single human being on Earth. Naming an album after Illmatic still widely regarded as one of the greatest rap albums of all time carries with it enormous expectations. But The Game isnt shying away from the pressure, and believes Drillmatic will reign supreme in a year thats already produced stellar releases from Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T, Vince Staples and others. Were about to put out the best rap album in, I dont know how many years, he declared. I dont care who got an album coming out, I dont care who dropped nothings gonna be better than this album I put my whole heart, my soul, my mind, everything that I am, I put into this album. I put more work into this album than I did on The Documentary, The Doctors Advocate. Read more