It’s ultimately a shame since Certified Lover Boy could have very well been Drake’s best record. All to seemingly prove a point about the amount of pull he has within the industry. Instead of relishing in the song’s triumphs, we’re subject to Drake needlessly attempting to match Kid Cudi’s signature, and at this point grating, moan. There’s no logical reason for a Drake and Kid Cudi collaboration in 2021, and yet there he is on “IMY2,” which inexplicably follows the transcendent “You Only Live Twice,” a pitch-perfect distillation of Drake and Rick Ross’s chemistry, and one of Lil Wayne’s most spectacular verses in years. The album suffers from this unfocused overabundance of voices. Drake recruits Jay for a track in which he says some coded insults about Kanye - who cares! Kanye and Jay-Z apparently don’t get along anymore. It carries all of the intensity of high school bickering, but with somehow even lower stakes. The same goes for the overly dramatic “Love All,” in which Jay-Z tosses loaded barbs directed at his onetime collaborator Kanye.
The 21 Savage and Project Pat-assisted, “Knife Talk” is serviceable, sure, but sounds more like a B-side from one of Drake’s constellation of playlists, compilations, and mixtapes. The album’s bloated tracklisting comes in part because of how many songs serve no purpose other than to air out grievances between millionaire celebrities. Unfortunately, what bubbles to the surface is a wave of anger that weighs down the entire record.ĭrake’s much-publicized feud with Kanye West, to whom the album devotes a great deal of subtle and not-so-subtle energy, appears to have corrupted much of what he does so well.
Less like he’s freestyling and more like he’s working fervently to uncover something. To his credit, Drake’s flow is as limber as ever, and his bars manage to possess a stream-of-consciousness feeling. “My heart feel vacant and lonely,” he continues on the same verse. Drake’s boyish openness about the desire to love and be loved has corroded into bleak cynicism. “My soulmate is somewhere out in the world just waiting on me,” he defeatedly relents.
Now, like on album-opener “Champagne Poetry,” he’s uninterested in even that. The quest, throughout his oeuvre, has been true love. (“I remember that I told you I miss you/that was more like a mass text,” he raps on “Papi’s Home.”) But this is the same Drake that crooned, “I should have put you somewhere no one could find you” to a bygone lover on last year’s “Desires.” Up to now, he’s been able to balance what could charitably be described as cringe-worthy lyrics with a kind of warm-hearted pathos. There’s plenty of toxic masculinity on display. In the album’s description, Drake calls the record a “combination of toxic masculinity and acceptance of truth which is inevitably heartbreaking.” The album’s cover art might as well be in reference to a significant portion of the existing male population.
You could even argue that he’s responsible for the archetypical “Fuckboy,” so burdened by a singular experience with their own emotions, they make reckless decisions with the feelings of others. Drake’s brand of lovesick rap did indeed give us the current generation’s brood of moody male musicians. The forlorn loverboy is unable to attain that which he so desperately needs. But across an endurance-testing 21 song tracklist, it appears as out of reach for Drake as at any point in his career.īy now, we’re used to this. His focus, as the title suggests, is indeed on love. Save for the delightfully campy “Way 2 Sexy” - which features a music video replete with nineties-style animation - Drake is at his most melancholy throughout the album. In another playful turn, the album’s cover art, designed by British artist Damien Hirst, features a dozen pregnant women emoji, naturally in a variety of ethnic shades.Īnd yet the songs on Certified Lover Boy inspire none of the lighthearted whimsy that Drake’s haircut and album cover suggest. It reads as the rapper’s longtail public relations effort for his sixth studio album, Certified Lover Boy, which was released last week. On social media, the 34-year-old musician appears in a variety of photos with the cartoonish embellishment affixed atop his head like a Looney Toons character. He’s sported the unrepentantly goofy hairstyle with the vigor of a method actor unwilling to abandon their character. For a little over a year, Drake has maintained a heart-shaped design at the front of his hairline.
0 kommentar(er)
