On the mixtape, Cannon shared, there’s “a lot of machismo, it’s a lot of… male aggression.” He gave a little laugh, as if at a distant memory. “And that sense of like, ‘I am who I am,’ and an unapologetic manner, and it has a sex appeal to it that’s purposeful. But my album is a little bit more introspective.”

While he’s the “ladies man speaking out and pleading my case” on the mixtape, on the album he’s more of the thoughtful, reflective father.

“But I think in order for me to get there,” Cannon said, “I have to come here first, too, because [these various sides] are all me—and that’s the beauty of music, is you get to express yourself. So I could say, all of the questions that may have been asked about [me], you know, ‘Who is he?’ and ‘Why does he move the way that he does?’—[The Explicit Tape] is probably the answer to all of that.”

The album then is more about the aftermath of his actions, he said, “having to deal with it and say, ‘Alright, well, a lot of this pain is self-inflicted.'”

“When I say, ‘Yo, this is the gospel of a broken soul,'” Cannon noted, quoting a previous synopsis of the mixtape, “to me it’s like, ‘Yeah, I know I’m toxic, and I’m trying to deal with it!'”

“That’s the beauty of music,” he observed. “I can have a full conversation this way.”