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Celeb News: "Nothing Was The Same" reviews
Member Since: 4/28/2011
Posts: 26,425
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"Nothing Was The Same" reviews
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Smart people will disagree on the most Drake-like moment perpetrated by Drake on the Toronto rapper's third studio album, Nothing Was the Same.1 Me, I'm going with "Too Much," the doleful soul-laced ballad he debuted last Friday on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Subjects broached in "Too Much" include: Drake's sick mother and her inability to heed Drake's texts; Paul Wall, Bun B, and the significance of the Houston rap scene in Drake's origin story; Drake's uncle Larry Graham and his unacceptable attitude about following his dreams; and Drake's dual status as a dreamer and a believer (which naturally compounds his angst about his uncle, as nobody leaves dreams unattended on Drake's watch).
Toward the end of the first verse, Drake demonstrates why he is the defining rapper of Generation Y. After requesting a back rub from his "main thing," he tells said thing that when he started out nobody wanted him. Now he expects his new record to move a million units in its first week. He started from the bottom and now he's here, only it's not what he expected. "Take a deep breath," she replies. "You're too worried about being the best out."
All of the Drake-iest qualities are represented on "Too Much": the oversharing of familial dirty laundry, the preoccupation with parsing his own (not too distant) past, the self-confidence disguised as self-doubt and self-doubt disguised as self-confidence, and the strident Y-ish striving. The influence of social media is palpable: In "Too Much," Drake simultaneously presents a façade that he knows is not entirely accurate while also acknowledging that this façade is not entirely accurate. (I'm referring to the meta reference to Drake's best-related stress, which, along with phenomena like "yacht envy" and "16-bedroom château guilt," is experienced by only the truly megalomaniacal.) He undercuts this bravado by talking openly about his problems, but he's not fully attached to this identity, either. The "real" Drake is situated somewhere between a self-consciously constructed and self-aware avatar and the handpicked highlights of interpersonal drama he has chosen to share with strangers.
This is the language of tweets, Tumblr posts, and Facebook timelines — the lingua franca of a generation. Drake understands this language intuitively, and Nothing Was the Same will be most appreciated by those who speak it fluently.
For an album that is expected to position Drake as the top rapper in the game, Nothing Was the Same is highly unusual, if not somewhat perverse. This is to say it's precisely the sort of unexpected left turn that has come to be expected from this black Jewish-Canadian ex–child actor turned MC–slash–semi-competent singer. Like 2011's Take Care, a nocturnal 70-minute mood poem that ranks as one of the most popular and critically respected rap records of the last few years, Nothing Was the Same offers little in the way of obvious singles. (The two catchiest tracks, the stalking "Started From the Bottom" and sinewy "Hold On, We're Going Home," were dispatched from the record months in advance.) But Take Care was more varied in its sonic approach and imbued with a seductive musical sophistication that drew in neophytes turned off by Drake's relatively pedestrian radio hits. While Same is similarly constructed as a self-contained, multi-track statement — thoughts left hanging at the end of one song are picked up and expounded upon on the next song — it doesn't have an easy entry point like "Headlines" or "Take Care" that will attract new fans. If Take Care didn't win you over, Nothing Was the Same will seem oppressively opaque.
It might even be a little much for Take Care fans. Musically, Same is practically a Bon Iver record. Working once again with his primary collaborator, Noah "40" Shebib — whose spare, existential soundscapes are as essential to the Drake persona as sweaters and Degrassi — Drake has fashioned Nothing Was the Same into a desolate and deliberately paced listening experience that's a little soft rock even by his well-established softness standards. ("I want to take it deeper than money, *****, vacation / and influence a generation that's lacking in patience," he explains on "From Time," because Drake is edutainment.) That's not necessarily a criticism, since Drake comes off at his most ridiculous when he attempts traditional macho posturing instead of subverting it. (Like on "Worst Behaviour," where Drake awkwardly engages in tough-guy talk like, "bitch, you better have my money when I come for that **** like O.D.B." This sort of thing just doesn't sound right coming from a guy who spells "behavior" with a u.)
When Drake sticks to more familiar subject matter — his conflicted feelings about women, how they make him feel, and how he feels about how they make him feel — he can be a penetrating lyricist. One of my favorite lines comes from the song "Connect": "She used to say, 'You can be whoever you want, even yourself' / yeah I show up / knowin' exactly who I was and never leave as myself." That's just excellent first-person reportage from the front lines of a toxic relationship.
Drake's admiration of Marvin Gaye, particularly Gaye's brilliant 1978 "divorce" album Here, My Dear, inspired Drake to record parts of Nothing Was the Same at Gaye's L.A. studio, though he mostly eschews the lush, self-lacerating prog-soul epics that Gaye favored. Instead, Drake prefers self-lacerating starkness — he raps over quiet undulating synths or tinkling pianos, the occasional sped-up vocal sample (like the chipmunk version of Whitney Houston on the album-opening "Tuscan Leather"), and skittering, hollowed-out beats. With the instrumentation pared back to a minimum, the songs zoom in on Drake's mug nearly as close as that goofy-ass cover painting does.
Nothing Was the Same enters a hip-hop scene that has never seemed more insular than it does in 2013. Following the rap vanguard requires serious work these days — the deluge of mixtapes and "leaked" remixes is exciting and a little daunting for the non-aesthete. The best young rappers lately tend to go for the obscure and idiosyncratic, though many do cave to the allure of pop stardom eventually. Drake used to be at the forefront of this vanguard — his epochal 2009 mixtape So Far Gone set him apart as a post–808s and Heartbreak stylist who was boldly taking the genre into fresh thematic territory. Four years later, Drake is more likely to be compared with rap's reigning warrior kings — Jay Z and Kanye West — than the contemporaries he has toured and collaborated with, like Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, and Future.
As the third and final piece in a trilogy of 2013 blockbuster rap releases, Nothing Was the Same is the most forward-looking in terms of what it means in the context of Drake's career as he assumes the center of mainstream hip-hop. It's the "just right" option after Drake's predecessors served up albums that were a little too hot and a little too cold to be entirely satisfying for a pop audience. Unlike Kanye, Drake is palatable for mass consumption. When Kanye describes a drunken late-night hookup on Yeezus's "Hold My Liquor," it's presented as a lonely journey into post-hedonistic hell; when Drake describes a similar scenario in "Connect," he merely sounds a little freaked out about being a single guy who's turning 27 next month and wants to find the right girl in order to get over his quarter-life crisis already.
Watching Drake play charades with ScarJo on Fallon was a reminder that he has been trained to be in the public eye since he was a teenager. On Nothing Was the Same, he's depressed but not tortured, confused but not troubled, and resentful but not angry — he's basically a nice, sensible dude who will eventually grow out of hanging out in strip clubs and falling in love with Hooters employees named Courtney.
This is because — unlike Jay — Drake has evolved into rap's great populist. Relatability is his franchise. It's an illusion, of course: Drake's Club Paradise tour was the most successful hip-hop tour of 2012, raking in more than $42 million, and Nothing Was the Same will surely rank among the most successful rap records of the year. But outside of the boast about "gettin' 20 million off the record" at the start of "Tuscan Leather," Drake keeps the money talk to a minimum on Nothing Was the Same. Again, his knowledge of pop celebrity mechanics in the social-media age is instinctive — he gets that the public ultimately prefers the fantasy of accessibility to the fantasy of sequestered opulence.
The distance between Yeezus and Magna Carta Holy Grail and Nothing Was the Same is indicative of a larger generation gap in rap specifically and pop generally. Some aging rapheads still have trouble comprehending Drake — Inspectah Deck was among the old-schoolers who were flummoxed by Drake titling one of the more thoughtful tracks on Same "Wu-Tang Forever," after the group's 1997 album. But the kids understand: Drake wasn't referencing Wu-Tang Forever as a descriptor but rather as a touchstone of his childhood. Same is littered with similar '90s-baby signifiers, including In Living Color, Keith Sweat, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He's discussing pop culture in a way that has become overly familiar on the Internet — as a means to mourn his own loss of innocence.
Fully realized if only intermittently engaging, Nothing Was the Same feels like a transitional record, catching Drake as he exits the "young turk" chapter of his career and enters a more rarefied stratum. He doesn't sound like he fully belongs yet. The Jay Z duet "Pound Cake/Paris Morton Music 2" has been designed as a "passing the torch" exercise, but it diminishes both parties — Jay says, "I had Benzes 'fore you had braces," and he sounds like he's 86 and addressing a teenage Dairy Queen employee. It's as if Jay now belongs to a bygone era of rap superstars. When he raps "my jet don't lag," Drake muses that "my high school reunion might be worth an appearance / make everybody go through security clearance." I think I know which status will get the most likes.
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{x}
i know it's tl;dr.
Great review
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 2,297
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No lies spotted
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Member Since: 4/28/2011
Posts: 26,425
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Quote:
(Like on "Worst Behaviour," where Drake awkwardly engages in tough-guy talk like, "bitch, you better have my money when I come for that **** like O.D.B." This sort of thing just doesn't sound right coming from a guy who spells "behavior" with a u.)
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lol awks when its the Canadian spelling.
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Member Since: 6/9/2011
Posts: 16,500
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Member Since: 5/4/2012
Posts: 12,811
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Member Since: 6/9/2011
Posts: 16,500
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Originally posted by Big Smoke
Oh White people.
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This comment + your avi.
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 11,808
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 2,297
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Originally posted by Big Smoke
Oh White people.
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Black people like him too
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Member Since: 9/1/2013
Posts: 1,994
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Not at him saying NWTS is practically a Bon Iver record....
Drake is obviously ahead of the game.
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 612
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Is he gonna be the next extremely overrated artist?
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Originally posted by CapitalBey
Black people like him too
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I know none
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Member Since: 9/1/2013
Posts: 1,994
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Originally posted by DemiNem
I know none
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I am black. I like Drake. Problem solved.
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 612
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Originally posted by ARTPOPULAR
I am black. I like Drake. Problem solved.
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outside of ATRL I mean. I never count the "stan world"
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Member Since: 8/22/2011
Posts: 9,429
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Quote:
Originally posted by Big Smoke
Oh White people.
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What kind of flawless post I agree
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Member Since: 6/1/2011
Posts: 10,384
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Nothing but the truth.
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Member Since: 4/28/2011
Posts: 26,425
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National Post -
Drake’s ‘Nothing Was the Same’ is the most pensive party hip-hop has ever had: Review
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There’s a Wu-Tang theme that runs through some of Nothing Was the Same, from the song that is just straight-up called Wu-Tang Forever, to little references to ODB and Cappadonna, to the classic C.R.E.A.M. call-out that pops up on the chorus of, fittingly enough, Drake’s collaboration with Jay-Z. It makes a certain amount of sense from a production standpoint: Drake’s resident music man, Noah “40″ Shebib, carves an atmosphere to rival RZA, even if that atmosphere is slightly tipsy and pensive while staring at the rain out of the window of your penthouse condo, as opposed to being stoned in front of kung-fu movies in the living room of a mid-century project apartment.
As far as the man himself is concerned, though, Wu-Tang is not the most natural of lineages. Sure, everyone decent is in some sense influenced by them, in the way that “Beatles-y” is an it’ll-work description of 50 years of pop-rock. And there are some tricky little corners Drake folds in the middle of his lines — “Like, eh, B I got your CD, you get an E for effort” sneaks its way into opener Tuscan Leather — that recall that Cappadonna/Raekwon/Ghostface origami.
But Wu-Tang was, spiritually, on the opposite end of the Drake spectrum. They took the obvious pain and the brutality of H.W. Bush-era poor New York life and infused it into a kind of bombastic escapism, turning pop culture touchstones — kung fu, mafioso, Blaxploitation — into badges of hard-living credibility and we’ve-overcome confidence. You and I know that Drake is none of these things. Maybe it’s his way of suggesting that all this mopey emotionalism is a mask?
If Drake is indeed playing a character, he’s got lose-75-pounds-and-sleep-in-a-prison commitment to this shtick. On first listen, Nothing Was the Same isn’t so much expanding on Take Care as going to a different dark corner of the same room. All those themes are still around, like women who haven’t been great to a man who hasn’t been all that great to them: “I make mistakes / I’d be the second one to admit it” Drake lays out on … oh, Tuscan Leather, again, which is probably the strongest song, both for Drake’s smart wordplay and 40 going Picasso on a Whitney Houston sample. Some bits of self-loathing, some bits of bragging about how he’s the best thing to come out of Toronto — best being “It ain’t about who did it first it’s about who did it right” on Wu-Tang Forever — some trying to meet more women so that whole cycle can continue.
There are hints of other ideas and alleys to explore, like the more openly pop R&B groove of The Motion, which sounds like the song Drake wrote after he heard Channel Orange or the smoove style of Hold On, We’re Going Home, which is a kind of sad-bastard Billy Ocean song, which I didn’t know I really wanted to hear until now. Already released single Started From the Bottom is more indicative than either of those, though, spare, wounded, just a bit arrogant but kind of honestly satisfied in a way that’s endearing, if anything Drake does is your thing.
In the end, the album doesn’t really do anything to disappoint, but seems to suggest that 40 did a bit more mind-expanding than Drake did. If Take Care was Drake really embracing that sensitive soul side — and opening up space for a heft of rappers to follow him on in — Nothing Was the Same is Drake presiding over the most pensive party hip-hop has had, making sure all the cups are filled and everyone has a mirror to look deeply into.
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source
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Member Since: 9/1/2013
Posts: 1,994
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Originally posted by DemiNem
outside of ATRL I mean. I never count the "stan world"
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LOL. Not the stans being excluded from society
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Member Since: 3/5/2011
Posts: 15,589
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Quote:
Originally posted by DemiNem
outside of ATRL I mean. I never count the "stan world"
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You don't know any black ppl who like Drake?
Oh mannnnn, i wish i had less WPs on my tab.
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Member Since: 11/17/2011
Posts: 52,363
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Quote:
Originally posted by DemiNem
outside of ATRL I mean. I never count the "stan world"
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where the hell do you live??? the ghetto???
plenty of blacks like him but most wont admit it because of stupidity and because hes deemed as weak
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Member Since: 4/28/2011
Posts: 26,425
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New York Times -
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This came not even two months after the release of “Take Care,” Drake’s masterpiece album of sensitivity and recrimination, and it read like an almost total repudiation of it. That album was a bloodletting of heartbreak and anxieties, while “Stay Schemin” was a firm punch to the jaw that became a staple at the same time as some purple songs from “Take Care.” Not only was Drake writing his own narrative, he was also writing his own counternarrative. It’s difficult to tell which of those is now the main plot — both are in play on “Nothing Was the Same” (Young Money/Cash Money/Republic), Drake’s third excellent major-label album, and the first to come as he is firmly ensconced in hip-hop’s top tier.
Before, he was an interloper effecting seismic change in hip-hop, thanks to his dismantling of the usual facades of acquisitiveness and fearlessness. Building on Kanye West’s template of ambivalence, Drake took Mr. West’s self-examination and stripped it of all its agitation, preserving only the emotional turmoil. He wanted success, and was aware of his more conventional competition, but his concerns were primarily internal.
But Drake is on top now, the genre’s stylistic standard-bearer and its most reliable and versatile hit maker, and his concerns have shifted accordingly. On “Nothing Was the Same” Drake broods like before, sure, but also puffs his chest in equal measure. He’s always used his music to send messages to women who’ve broken his heart, or whom he just couldn’t hold tight enough. Now he’s got something to lord over them, too.
The musical choices are familiar — hazy, often doleful post-soul and low-end-heavy hip-hop, largely moving slowly and with deliberateness. Most of the album is produced by Drake’s longtime associate 40, who’s sticking close to the sound that’s become their joint signature. The aching hit “Hold On, We’re Going Home” recalls “Find Your Love,” from 2010; “Pound Cake” is reminiscent of “Dreams Money Can Buy,” from 2011.
The most noticeable change in Drake over the last couple of years has been physical, not musical: suddenly he’s muscled, full of hard angles. The eyes remain soft, but everything around them has been remade. This is the externalization of the bravado that is now an essential part of his music — he’s bragged plenty before, but now it has weight. (It’s probably worth mentioning the New York nightclub altercation between Drake’s crew and Chris Brown’s crew in June 2012; when Drake spoke of it in a recent GQ interview, he had an ominous air, as if anticipating how things could get worse.)
But muscles aside, there’s no real physicality to Drake’s toughness. It’s a psychological evolution more than anything, the result of accepting his stature as reality, not just a dream. In the past, laying himself bare has been the most natural thing. But when you’re the object of ire and jealousy, the apt response is to flash teeth and snarl a bit.
The “Nothing Was the Same” tough talk began several months ago with the release of “Started From the Bottom” — like most of Drake’s opening album singles, it’s far more muscular than what appears on the rest of the album. It’s rousing and victorious — “There ain’t really much out here that’s popping off without us” — and also a bit malevolent.
That was one of several songs, dating back to “Stay Schemin,” in which Drake put up his dukes and prepared for a fight: the baleful “5AM in Toronto,” or his verse on the remix to “Versace” by Migos (“This year I’m eating your food and my table got so many plates on it”), or the joyful flexing on ASAP Rocky’s single, the unprintable title of which shortens to “Problems.”
These songs taken together are the equivalent of a shuttle burning through its rocket boosters before thrusting into space, a familiar Drake strategy. Such sturdy and assured early singles and guest appearances free him up to make an album heavy on catharsis.
That’s only part of what Drake’s done on “Nothing Was the Same,” but still a huge part. Sometimes the opposing personalities occupy the same song, as on “Furthest Thing,” part tender and part tense. But this album includes some of his most diaristic work, including “From Time,” which is full of scars: “Passive aggressive when we’re texting, I can feel the distance,” he says casually, as if exhausted. The song continues with melancholy piano flourishes by Chilly Gonzales, who set the reflective, miserable mood on “Marvins Room” on “Take Care.” (“From Time” also recalls Common’s wistful “I Used to Love H.E.R.” — and maybe that’s a quiet swipe at Common, who took some lazy shots at Drake a couple of years back.)
“Connect” is slightly rougher, more of a rumble than a mope. It’s about falling for a woman not worth falling for, and then falling again, and again, never learning a lesson: “The idea is so fun every time/At least we try for home run every time.” This is Drake at his eviscerating best, putting both himself and his partner under a microscope, then using the flaws as fuel:
When it falls apart, I’m always still down
To pick a million tiny little pieces off the ground
Wish you would learn to love people and use things
And not the other way around
There is a way Drake cuts through the structures of language that people create to better capture their emotions but really end up as hindrances. It’s unique in hip-hop, and rare in pop as a whole. He is raw, tender, direct.
That goes for his blustery side, too. “Wu-Tang Forever” is a rough-edged love song that samples the Wu-Tang Clan. It bleeds into “Own It,” a sort of extended interlude that drips feeling right down to Drake’s voice, which is processed heavily until it begins melting. (Similar is “305 to My City,” a formless, odd track on which Drake’s vocals slither like warm candle drippings.) Then, as if backing away from a lover’s embrace, comes “Worst Behavior,” the most chaotic and rowdy song here, which seethes with spite, with Drake invoking Mase’s casually swaggering verse on the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems.”
People still let Drake down — on this album, he talks about strained business-personal relationships on “Tuscan Leather,” and returns a few times to the subject of women he’s loved who’ve moved on and found happiness elsewhere. In places, now, he’s pushing back with ferocity. On “Pound Cake,” it’s his old classmates in the cross hairs: “Thinking back on how they treated me my high school reunion might be worth an appearance/Make everybody have to go through security clearance.”
On “Too Much,” it’s family members and old friends who receive a tongue lashing. When he performed it on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” this month, he began with a disclaimer: “Before I do this song, I just want to say to my friends and family, I want the best for everybody, and I love you all.” But during the song, he had the same eye of the tiger as in the “Stay Schemin” video — it was visceral, even a little uncomfortable.
There’s an implicit hip-hop competition taking place this year between Drake, Jay Z and Mr. West, whose severe left turn “Yeezus” is the only hip-hop album of the year that gives “Nothing Was the Same” a run for its money, even as it runs in far less accessible directions. That Mr. West showed up to perform at OVO Fest, the annual summer festival Drake hosts in Toronto, indicates, though, that whereas Drake once happily colored within Mr. West’s lines, he is making his own paintings now, and Mr. West can benefit from standing next to them. (For what it’s worth, there are definite echoes of Mr. West’s early production on the first two songs on this album.)
That may also be why Drake allowed few other people onto this album: it’s a meaningful time to stand alone, on top. To the extent that other voices invade this record, they do so respectfully — Sampha’s decaying pleas on “Too Much,” Trae the Truth’s Houston bona fides on “Connect,” Jay Z’s cool boasts on “Pound Cake,” and that’s about it. None of them disrupt Drake’s effortless triumph over mainstream rap excess.
On “Over Here,” from the recent mixtape of the singer Partynextdoor, who is signed to Drake’s OVO Sound label, Drake gave himself an origin story: “My weight up/I refused to wait up/I started a new race.” And that’s true — by creating his own sound, and lane, he ensured no one could best him. And by being consistently innovative and great, he ensured that his outlier sound would take over hip-hop’s center. He’s winning under the new rules, and the old ones, too.
So Drake is defiant about his place in the pecking order now. “Paris Morton Music 2,” the final song on “Nothing Was the Same,” is all about that: “I’m the big homie/They still be trying to lil’ bro me, dog/Like I should fall in line.” Tough Drake isn’t having it.
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{x}
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Banned
Member Since: 10/1/2011
Posts: 15,669
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Quote:
Originally posted by DemiNem
Is he gonna be the next extremely overrated artist?
I know none
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Most of the black youth **** with Drake where I'm from.
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