The Ball is in Drake’s Court

What to Expect as We Approach Drake’s Career-Defining Moment

​“I mean, I’m really trying. It’s not like I’m just sitting here, just fuckin’ shooting with my eyes closed. Like, I’m trying. I’m really trying to make music for your life.”
– Drake, The Fader, (September 24, 2015 Issue)

While the hip-hop world is finding new ways to steer the genre in a new direction, you just feel that Drake is sitting back like a chess player, seeing four steps ahead. Despite the unorthodox rollout of Kanye’s new album, or the untitled Kendrick album that was dropped on us with no warning, you can’t help but sense ignorance in their deliveries. Like they are trying to push the boundaries and challenge their fans, while being in an anti-establishment mindset. Drake, on the other hand, is aware. He knows his place in the upper echelon of hip-hop. Yet, he isn’t succumbing to the unprecedented delivery of music in an era of multiple streaming services.

Last month, with the world anxiously awaiting the ever-changing Kanye album, Drake simply went on his radio show, dropped the first single off of his forthcoming album, Views From the 6, and announced a temporary, yet reasonable release date of April. It’s refreshing to know when to expect a highly anticipated album to drop. In doing this, Drake showed the world that he is in control. He knows his audience, knows what they want, and isn’t afraid to give them hints on his upcoming music in a traditional sense. This isn’t the first time Drake has shown us his hand.

Throughout his career he has displayed his superior ability of timing, and never more so than during the run up to Views.
Drake hasn’t dropped an album since Nothing Was the Same in September 2013. His mastery is not only in being able to stay on our minds since its release. The sheer quality and quantity of music he has released, is unparalleled. That’s a two and a half year gap between albums. For many artists, especially rappers, their audience moves on. And if not, at least their place amongst hip-hop’s elite would be over-taken by a competitor. Not Drake. Even before the two surprise mixtapes released in the beginning and near the end of 2015, Drake was able to keep his name on our tongues like no one has during a long period of time without an album. He mastered the skill of remaining relevant by jumping on tracks that had gained a cult following, bringing them to the mainstream due to his sheer presence, most notably, with Versaceand Tuesday.

This ability crosses over into his own songs. In between album releases Drake has mastered the craft of giving us enough music to tide us over without watering down his albums. While most artists would save a song as good as 0 to 100 for a proper album release, Drake casually leaked it in the summer of 2014 and reaped the benefits eight months later when it was nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance at the Grammy Awards. The amount of songs that he has leaked that have not ended up on an album is utterly ridiculous. And not because of the quantity. While you have rappers like Young Thug putting out hundreds of songs in a year, Drake puts out quality. You can look at any run-up to his previous albums and notice the promo singles that he lets loose along the way.

What is so impressive is how some of these loosies are arguably his best songs. 9 Am in Dallas months before Thank Me Later. Dreams Money Can Buy and Club Paradise leading up to Take Care. 5 Am in Toronto and The Motion, as he was putting the finishing touches on Nothing Was the Same. How Bout Now and Heat of the Moment in the fall before If You’re Reading This. The list goes on and on. And its almost disrespectful calling these promo singles. They’re album-worthy material that Drake is confident enough to leak, knowing that he has much more where that came from. That’s what makes Drake so compelling. He is so genuinely secure with who he is as a person and artist, that he is never in a rush to put music out.

“We may be worlds apart in the sense of, you know, where you’re from, where I’m from, what I’m doing, what you’re doing — but what are we talking about? We’re talking about very simple human emotions. We’re talking about love, sometimes. We’re talking about triumph, we’re talking about failure, we’re talking about nerves. We’re talking about fear. We’re talking about doubt. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing — you gotta at least hear what I’m saying to you. And I pray that it helps.”
– Drake, The Fader, (September 24, 2015 Issue)

In an era, filled with rappers who have their eyes on fashion (Kanye and A$AP), or their heart in activism (Kendrick and J. Cole), Drake has never steered away from what has made him the voice of themillennial generation. His music resonates so well because he speaks to his listeners, making us feel that he understands what we are going through. No rapper before or since has been able to empathize with his audience this way. And it’s not just because he is good with words and can tap into certain human emotions, it’s also because he shares his vulnerabilities and insecurities with us. They are on full display as he wears his heart on his sleeve. What many have pointed to as his downfall and inauthenticity, is actually what has made him a genuine voice in a genre full of pretenders.

He is so in tune with his audience that it feels like his every move is calculated. Take the Meek Mill beef for example. Drake won specifically because of his supreme aptitude in understanding the force that social media has on his audience. Gone are the days when a rap beef was decided by lyrics and call-outs. Meek Mill didn’t get this message. After calling Drake out on twitter and igniting the fued, Drake responded by dropping Charged up, then Back-to-Back two days later. Drake had already won even before Meek Mill responded the next week. In this day and age it’s all about timing and precision. Drake knew that it was over when he put out his second, diss track, before Meek Mill had even put out his first. How ass backwards is that? The guy who is the first to talk shit on twitter, out of the blue no less, is the one playing catch-up?

Drake’s precision during the beef goes beyond timing. The most impressive part was how he made a diss song into a hit that people were quoting line by line. Back to Back showed Drake at his most crafty. Take the line “You gettin’ bodied by a singin n****a.” No one is better than flipping a negative about themselves into a positive in order to gain the upper hand. Because whats worse than getting dissed by a rapper? Getting dissed by a singer. And if that wasn’t enough to convey his superior strategic mind, two days after the song dropped, with that line being one of the most quotable on the song, he drops Hotline Bling, a song where he is singing entirely, and one that would end up going 5X Platinum. I mean, talk about ending a man’s career. Drake took a slight that is constantly used against him, that of him being a singer, out-rapped Meek Mill at his own game, then two days later releases arguably his biggest song to date just to convey the message to the world that he still takes more pride in being an artist than a rapper. And you have to think that Drake saw it playing out like this the whole time.

“Please do not speak to me like I’m that Drake from four years ago, I’m at a higher place.”
Drake, No Tellin’, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late (2015)

​As we anxiously await Views, you can’t help but feel that this is amoment. The pinnacle point in Drake’s career. He is at the height of his powers. He knows it. You know it. I know it. Everything in his career has led up to this. The early career criticism that he is soft and was raised in the suburbs, the post-Take Care judgement that he is lonely and depressed, the attacks from the old-heads who weren’t ready to hand over the crown when he dropped Nothing Was the Same. All of it has made him who he is. And now, Viewswill represent the culmination of Drake’s decade-long ascent to hip-hop’s throne. It’s Drake’s world and we’re just living in it.

Originally published at www.bradcalories.com.