How Much Longer Do We Have to Listen to Throwaways by Drake?
For months, DJ Khaled has been teasing the Drake feature that would appear on Khaled’s upcoming album, Grateful.
We have yet again been scammed, hoodwinked, tricked, duped, deceived, suckered, and worst of all, bamboozled. “To The Max” can be placed in the same category as half of the songs on Drake’s latest release, More Life; They are unfinished, half-assed, C-side quality throwaway tracks, leftover from Views.
Just to be clear, I have no issues with artists releasing throwaways. I find them to be a valuable insight into an artist’s creative process. Take Eminem’s, Lose Yourself for example. In 2014, as part of the SHADYXV compilation album, Eminem showed us a demo version of the classic song. Everything in the demo version, from the opening monologue to the hook, is nearly unrecognizable from the final version. Not one mention of “mom’s spaghetti” can be found in the demo, recorded in 2003.
My only issue with releasing a demo track, or a throwaway, is when the artist attempts to mask it as anything but a B-side. Calling a mixtape a “playlist” doesn’t change what it is. Don’t insult the intelligence of your fans by pretending you put much of your time and effort into a project which you clearly didn’t.
When Kendrick Lamar released his throwaway tracks, we knew what we were getting. They were packaged and labeled accordingly, as to not prompt the listener to expect much.
Drake tried to hide unfinished songs like “Passionfruit” between throwaways like “Madiba Riddim” and stolen songs like “KMT” and “Portland”.
This brings us to DJ Khaled and Drake’s newest “anthem”, “To The Max.” Drake has two short verses, filled with classic Drake lines such as “Only say ‘I love you’ just so I could hear it back.”
The hook, just like the rest of the track, is dominated by the beat. Drake isn’t even present, with the repetitive lines being spoken by some dude named 1WayFrank.
The beat, produced by Ayo Juan and Cool & Dre, is bouncy and fun and it’ll get a party going, there’s no doubting that. But I expected way more from these two, especially after their last collab hit, “For Free”, which sounded like a complete sentence compared to the fragment that is “To The Max.”
I pray this marks the end of the Drake throwaways. It has been a year since Views was released. I think it’s time for Drake to get back in the studio and start working on newer material. Hopefully, we will devote the necessary time and effort into his next release.
