Drake's Midlife Crisis
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Last week when news broke that Drake was going to be dropping a surprise album named Honestly, Nevermind on June 18, some of us hopefuls in the hip-hop community hoped that it would be a return to a style of rapping not seen since 2015’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. IYRTITL as it is commonly abbreviated on hip-hop discussion forums all over was also a surprise drop dubbed as a “mixtape” by Drake. So there was a faint chance that we would get something good.
For me IYRTITL is the best Drake album since 2011’s Take Care, no other album of his has come close to matching the sheer energy dripping off of IYRTITL. So when I woke up the morning of June 18 to a message from my friend chosafine that said, “It’s a…dance album” and “Please do not waste your time with this”, I prepared for the worst.
Folks, I couldn’t get past the second track on the 14 track album. It is a mediocre house album with Drake’s bad singing on it. It is so bad it made his previous album (Certified Lover Boy) which I also thought was mediocre seem better in comparison.
Reception on the r/hiphopheads subreddit was also a unanimous “this fucking sucks” combined with “this is gonna slap at H&M”. Drake had made a album which had all the excitement of grocery store white bread. Inoffensive background music to be played on speakers inside elevators and department stores all over the world. Low effort bland house music where one track blends into the next.
While I was yet again disappointed, I was not surprised: Drake’s studio albums have continued to get worse over the past few years. Man knows he can just put out any old garbage onto streaming services and make bank. This is a man who has lost any hunger to make good music.
The thing is that I am pretty sure Drake can put out the kind of music he did early in his music career…he just chooses not to. Not content with ruining the hip-hop charts with mediocrity he is now expanding it to the dance/house genre. Ugh.
At this point I’m done having any hope that Drake’s music is going to improve going forward. I will continue listening to some of my favourites from his early career but otherwise I’m moving on. If you want actually good dance music, go check this out.
Honestly, nevermind indeed.