Toosie Slide Was Years in the Making: The Rise & Downfall of Drake
After one listen of Drake’s newest song Toosie Slide, I quickly wondered: “What happened to Drake?” and turns out, I’m not the only one asking that question in sheer confusion on where the quality Take Care artist’s music went. Toosie Slide is Drake’s most critically panned track to date, besides I’m Upset, and it seems like even casual Drake fans have recognized that this song is a plant to reach a broader audience.
When it comes to viral hits, Drake is no stranger. Forever, his first hit single, released in 2009, and he has topped Billboard ever since. While the quality of his music varied at the time, there was still a good stream of genuinely solid, acclaimed tracks (Marvin’s Room, Crew Love, Hold On We’re Going Home). I still heavily enjoy these tracks and moderately enjoy some of his projects such as Take Care, Nothing Was the Same, and If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, but a string of forced hits and overall laziness when it comes to songwriting and production caused a major downfall in the quality of Drake’s music. And still, some tracks off of Views, More Life, and even Scorpion I enjoy, but those tracks are absolutely shrouded by complete messes of projects with little to no cohesiveness and generic filler shrouded everywhere. His most recent efforts have turned into pleas for radio play.
In my opinion, after Drake’s big 2015 and Grammy nomination, I think he realized that nearly anything he does will work, and he was right. It’s as if Take Care shot Drake out of a cannon and no matter what he does in the air, positive or negative, he can’t stop his ongoing upward trajectory. The biggest difference between Pre-Views Drake and Post-Views Drake is clear. The influences Drake valued and infused into his music have slowly turned from the tasteful infusion and into blatant stealing. A good example of this would be Scorpion. It was marketed as “Half for the Drake fans who miss Drake singing and also for the Drake fans who miss Drake rapping,” and he delivered on neither, yet it still had smash-hit after smash-hit. His once-layered music was watered down into two sections where the part meant for fans of Take Care was more an attempt to make upbeat summer pop-rap derivative of Chris Brown. The second half was a half-baked attempt to appease the Never Was the Same base that ripped off many artists that Drake himself had signed to his own label. His target audience has purposefully turned from the general public to specifically casual music listeners.
But if you think that’s low-brow, you haven’t heard Toosie Slide. How about instructional lyrics derivative of the Cupid Shuffle with a target audience of TikTok influencers? Through the snippets and reveal of the title it was blatantly clear from the get-go that Drake was trying to break through to TikTok because that’s the only social media platform he hadn’t monopolized yet. It’s a monstrosity of a track that had been culminating since 2016 as Drake has continued to stoop lower and lower for recognition.
Article Written by Ari Partrich | @ariprtrch
