Coming to Grips With Drake
Learning to accept the inevitable
Many of us are dealing with the “amazing feat” of Donald Trump becoming President of the United States. I know it was hard for a lot of us. But come on, the short end of the stick was being given to us, regardless — so a horrible outcome was inevitable.
I’ve been spending 2016 coming to grips with something myself. We’ve watched him pine over various women…with no reciprocity. He’s been called to task on his writing, his background…nothing seems to stick to him. Some of us complain about his omnipresence on Radio. Others complain he’s gone from being defensive to a swaggering, offensive bully.
And we’re okay with it. The just announced Spotify streaming record demonstrates this clearly.
Of course I’m talking about Drizzy Drake and earlier this year I came to grips with the fact that I too am a fan. Let me explain.
I listened to all of Drake’s mixtapes (like I listen to everything). Like many rappers of that era, he sounded like someone else. He was trying to find his voice.
But then something happened.
So Far Gone was released and this Drake sounded like a different man. And he was now backed by Lil Wayne and Young Money. Wait, What?
Lil Wayne manager Cortez Bryant remembers their coming together.
He (Jas Prince) put in the cd, Comeback Season, and yo, I was like ok, I’ll listen to a little bit of it. And he played it for me and I was like, ‘yo…who the fuck is this? He’s so clear. I can hear every word.’ I was like, ‘this is dope’… …and then I met him, I was like, ‘oh shit, you light-skinned and you sound like this?’
Jas Prince, son of J Prince of Rap-A-Lot fame, was one of the earliest advocates of Drake and had been trying to sell his dad or anyone on what he saw as greatness.
After his dad didn’t bite, Prince honed in on Lil Wayne, who also was dismissive at first. But Jas kept playing Drake every chance he got until finally he convinced Wayne as he drove Weezy F Baby to get jewelry. Wayne was a captive audience and the rest is that cliche.
So let’s get back to So Far Gone. That mixtape was the first Drake/Young Money phase release. I mentioned he sounded different. What that different was, was now Drake suddenly had a southern accent. I was a little put off by that but chalked it up to him being influenced by the hottest in the game at that time, Wayne.
When that Timbaland Shock Value II came out, Drake’s feature, “Say Something,” was the most buzzed about track on the album.
Hell, I heard it and anticipated a classic debut release.
But before he even made it to that Timbo release, he escaped his first rap scandal.
In April of 09, a couple of months after So Far Gone began it’s tear, Drake was invited on Hot 97 to drop a few bars for Funkmaster Flex. Drake rocked back and forth uncomfortably in his baby blue t-shirt as Flex dropped bomb after bomb and after the obligatory introduction, Drake commenced to rapping…from his Blackberry.
Usually rappers have their verses prepared when they appear anywhere to do a freestyle, even if they have fifty people behind them chiming in on each line, it shows the level of expertise of the MC. In the past, whether it be your DJing, beatboxing, b-boying, whatever, you ain’t come out the house and present it to the world unless you had that shit down pat.
And here was this dude, from Canada, fresh off of a Canadian tv show, in a non-descript baby blue T, rapping off of his phone. The blogs and social media lit up. In my mind it was “ground opening, grand closing.”
I was wrong.
“Say Something” was a banger and “Bed Rock” was hitting at the same time. Either people forgot, or they ain’t give a damn about Blackberry-gate.
That summer of 2010 the media came out in full force for Drizzy. He had features everywhere and the NYT was calling him “The New Face of Hip-Hop.”
And we included a couple of his songs in our playlist. This was also a big summer for Lex Luger who had placements on Waka Flocka’s album (Don’t front, you know you liked that “Hard in the Paint”) and Rick Ross’ album. You couldn’t hear radio without hearing Luger’s signature transform sound. And you couldn’t hear radio without hearing Drake.
This was the beginning of his many songs on the radio run. I mentioned the winter of 09, but this was different. Now, Drake was visibly a star and his hook on Ross’ “Aston Martin Music” propelled that song into being an oft played track that was previously unreleased.
Thank Me Later would go on to set the precedent for what a Drake release would be: a few key features, one with a prominent woman, another with a prominent man, a few deeply emo singing tracks where Drake bemoans his inability to find the real, and a couple of rappity rap tracks where Drake decides to just spit.
I realized that this was the formula when Take Care, Drake’s sophomore studio album, was released. He had songs that lived on the radio, “Headlines” and “Make Me Proud” played at damn near the same time. Not to mention, “I’m on One,” from DJ Khallid’s We The One was getting equal play.
In earlier days, people would have frowned on this type of saturation of the market. “Make them miss you,” some old-world producer would bemoan. Well, that concept is as dated as rappers rapping — no one cares about either anymore.
Nothing Was The Same (2013) and If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late (2015) followed and, although there may be two years between each project, Drake’s releases all seem to blend one into the other.
And as the years have passed, He’s gone from one damn “he played himself” moment to the next…
Here’s Drake going all groupie about Lebron…
Here’s Drake looking corny as fuck in his music video…oh we gonna meme that for eternity…
And there’s the ongoing Drake sweating (insert woman here i.e. Nikki, Rihanna, Taylor) tale that never ends. His constant unrequited love seems to provide for more material but from the outside looking in — it seems a wee bit embarrassing.
All of it does.
And while smaller things have taken down rappers careers in the past, none of this has any affect on Drake. If anything, it seems to endear him more to the people.
If that were a theory, it proved to be to be fact.
I realized that I aged out of this type stuff when I watched the alleged beef between Meek Mill and Drake go down. I say aged out, because from the gate, none of it made sense.
Meek was mad because Drake didn’t promote his album or some shit. Called him out on having ghost writers, which, I don’t know, seemed unnecessary, but it was done.
In the old world, the “Do not say shit til you write your own rhymes” world, that accusation alone would body an MC. Not Drake. Without ever addressing it, Drake fires back. Well…fires a strong word. I like the modern “clap back.” It seems less violent. Less forceful.
And that’s what Drake’s response was to me.
“Charged Up” is that response. I listened and shrugged. I guess if he said Meek’s name, that would be giving power to Meek…but everyone knew who he was talking about. But he gets the first blood award.
Then we waited….and waited…
When you used to get knocked out in Nintendo’s Punch Out!!! you had to tap the buttons as quickly as possible for your character to stand up…unless it was Glass Joe…he never got up.
That was Meek. His response was so lackluster…he never got up. Which was amazing to me. Meek comes from the rough and tumble battle days on the streets of Philly. That shit was not for the lighthearted. Google: Joey Jihad knocked out. Meek survived that era so we expected more from the bul.
As far as I was concerned that was it. There was “Back to Back” (yawn). The end. But then Drizzy hit us with “30 for 30 Freestyle,” which, I also don’t consider much of a diss but there was one line in there that resonated with me.
I mean, I say hats off for a solid effort — But we didn’t flinch for a second, we got our shit together
Which brings me to my last point.
To say that Views was highly anticipated would be an understatement. There were damn think pieces written trying to figure out what Drake would possibly talk about.
Which made me chuckle. We all know what Drake is going to talk about. So when the project was released, I downloaded it, died laughing at the photos in the photo booklet, and gave it a spin.
Remember when I mentioned that Drake formula? The only thing added to that now is a faux-Reggae track, and a house-esque song, but the formula is still there.
After my one listen, because that’s generally all I can muster, I decided to make a playlist of all my favorite Drake songs…35 and counting. And I know I wrote this somewhere, but when I told my brother Isma’il Latif this number, he immediately responded:
Damn, that’s a lot of songs. I bet you don’t even have 35 favorite Black Moon songs…
And that was the moment I realized that I was a fan. I always defended him as honest when people critiqued him. I enjoyed the songs where he actually raps…but a fan?
Then I followed his teams movement…
Two months after Views was released, OVO Sound Radio, Drake’s label, would air their first episode on Apple Music. They used this platform to push their artists.
Majid Jordan came to most people’s attention with their summer 2015 release, “My Love,” and dropped their debut album in February of 2016. (This is the album I used to convince my brother Michael Moore that he liked House music, so shot out to Majid Jordan.)
dvsn had stoked the interest of the people with their epic seven minute plus “With Me” in September of 2015 and people speculated about who this group or person was as there was no picture or press release giving info on him/them. Their album was released in March.
Although Roy Woods didn’t get a lot of buzz when his project Waking at Dawn was released a few weeks before OVO Sound Radio aired, his music, combined with the above artists, presented what people had been growing to know, but now could easily identify — Drake’s roster (which some attribute to Toronto) had a SOUND.
It can be really droning after awhile, but I can say that I’m a fan. It’s good music.
By the time PARTYNEXTDOOR, OVO’s first signed artist, was ready to put out his second studio album, P3, everything was in place for a nice little roll on — OVO Radio dedicated a whole episode to debut his album.
Whether those albums are giants or not, I can’t say that it matters. Frequent collaborator and Drake producer 40 talked about how they don’t chase hits and singles but instead they just stick with their vision. They clearly have a vision and they are obviously sticking to it. In that way alone, they’re winning.
we got our shit together
That’s obvious. Because in Drake’s latest string of attacks, he came for Cudi and Pusha T…still not naming anyone, but this was pretty specific.
Again, the origin of these attacks is so unimportant to me. Cudi is seeking help for depression and I’m sure Pusha T will be too after spending the last few weeks mobilizing support for Hillary R. Clinton.
Kudos to Cudi for the physical threat. But Pusha…our brother that has lyrics for days, our brother that has grown famous for how many different ways he can talk about selling substances, that dude..Pusha has said nothing.
And it’s likely for the better. Nothing said against Drake will affect the public’ perception of him anyway. OVO got they shit together.
Throughout the summer of 2016, I skimmed through articles that compared Drake to Michael Jackson. Their argument was and is based on how long Views has lived on top of the Billboard list.
Then just this week there was the huge report that Drake’s Views now has exceeded 3 Billion (that’s with a B — Billion) streams. Aside from Rihanna, Drake is the only multi-platinum selling artist this year.
The reason that I was unable to concede Drake’s huge-ness, because in terms of stardom, what counts for stardom doesn’t measure up to the stardom of a Michael Jackson or a Prince.
When Michael Jackson was at his prime, it was common to see groups have one person dedicated to being THE Michael Jackson impersonator. The Michael Jackson jacket was a thing…trust me.
Prince not only changed the sound of Black music, but he had groups attempting to look like him. L.A. Reid speaks about that often, how it was cool to be as close to looking like Prince as possible…make-up and all.
If Drake had a jacket, ain’t no little kids running around in the Drake jacket…or maybe they would. People certainly want to sound like him. I’ve turned off many an artist because they’ve gone into a long section of Drake-isms, most notably the ubiquitous “yeahs” and drawn out words.
Drake has done for his generation what Run DMC did for mine, he’s the changing of the guard. Rap music for us was testosterone-filled, hyper-aggressive, machismo, brash, lyric-centric music. Rap to us raised up the energy level to the point where fights were damn near unavoidable. Songs like “Ante Up” or “Shook Ones pt 2" come to mind.
If you fight someone because “I’m On One” came on, you may have had too much to drink, an awful day at work, and you watched a tyrant get elected President.
And it’s not just about violence and aggression. Rap music once represented the epitome of the Black Alpha man, the assertive, straightforward man who made it a point to have his art honed before making an appearance. The man who guarded his image closely so as not to be caught out there — nothing worst than to come off as corny.
And while a lot of the music had a misogynistic tone, that was mostly due to misplaced masculinity. The masculinity of a people who lacked true male role models.
But that’s not the case anymore. Young M.A is more masculine (and misogynistic) than 90% of her peers. (maybe that’s what Young Thug means when he says we need to scrap the notion of gender). Her swag and presence harks to the days of old. And her aggressive nature has many “old school” New York purists calling her the one.
And that’s what I had to come to grips with. Whether they admit it or not, Drake is the voice of his generation. At the least, he’s the sign of what is to come. He’s an artist that can do no wrong. Can’t be embarrassed, can be a bully, can repeat the same formula ad infinitum and the people will still eat it up.
Kinda sounds like our President-elect, huh.
Come to grips with it.
