Among last night's 10 new album drops (count em up), Kevin Gates released a new project while still behind bars. This is all thanks to his wife and ride-or-die bae, Dreka Gates, who is appropriately shouted in the top comment here, because without Dreka, it's very possible we'd be without new Gates music for quite some time-- and that would have been unfortunate, especially since Gates is the type of rapper who has consistently dropped new mixtapes or commercial releases through out his career. Since 2007's Pick of da Litter, Gates has never gone more than a year between any release, more often than not, delivering at least two projects per year. Thus, not being able to keep his fans fed at the same speed as they've been used to must have been a difficult fact to face as the rapper deals with a prison sentence. Enter, Dreka, who was basically given the go-ahead to create and compile this latest release for Gates, make all the executive decisions as to what music makes the final cut, and all the responsibility that comes with putting together a new album.
She revealed as much at the beginning of July, around the same time we started getting singles from By Any Means 2. She expressed her initial concerns about being given such a hefty and important task, but ultimately, she wasn't all too worried simply because anything Gates does is fuego. She tweeted at the time, "BTW working on Kevin's new project right now 😬and I'm not going to lie, I'm nervous as F b/c I'm not getting any input from him 😩 & he's fully entrusted me w/everything so there's a lot of pressure! I respect real artists and their artistry and to be making ALL of the decisions is scary but rest assured the music is always fire🔥 as F! 😌"
Thus we had to bring it to you guys -- how'd Dreka do? Does By Any Means 2 live up to its name, the first instalment? The first By Any Means dropped back in 2014 in the free mixtape format, and became one of his strongest mixtape releases in his collection (alongside the Luca Brasi series). Check it out again below, and check out the second instalment; let us know what you think.
