He also mentions his philandering exploits with women, but it fails to register any excitement over a bland sample and subpar lyrics. On a sample of Montell Jordan’s “Daddy’s Home,” he mentions that he’s running out of ops, which makes you think he would stop bringing them up, until he does forty seconds later.
On “Papi’s Home,” Drake offers nothing that we haven’t heard before, with even less exciting production than before. “Under a picture live some of the greatest quotes from me / Under me I see all the people that claim they over me.” The “Nice For What” rapper begins his sixth studio album, “Certified Lover Boy,” with a rather nice song in “Champagne Poetry,” which samples a cover of the Beatles’ song “Michelle.” On this track, Drake shows that his pen is good (when he decides to try) and refers to the many Instagram captions he inspires, as well as his dominance in rap. It’s like living in a narcissist’s version of a WandaVision episode. Only here can you experience an hour and thirty minutes of Bored Drake, Petty Drake, Tough Guy Drake and “I’m Happy to be a Dad” Drake while feeling like you’re the one who misunderstood the assignment. The album was bloated and featured one of Drake’s worst singles in his career in “One Dance.” But what can you say when it sells over one million copies in the first week and the lead single is at least 13x platinum. However, cracks in that formula begin to show in his fourth studio album “Views,” which in my opinion is better than most people give it credit for, but still could have done with six fewer tracks. That worked well during his exceptional 2015 run that brought us the commercial mixtape, “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” and the collaborative project with Future “What a Time to be Alive.” Somewhere between then and 2016, Drake came to the realization that he didn’t possess the capability of making classic albums anymore, so he went with a blueprint he could control: go bigger and more commercial. It was something he spoke on in his Rap Radar interview in 2019, when he dismissed the notion that he only possessed one classic in his discography.
Although “Take Care” would be considered a classic years later, “Nothing Was the Same” wouldn’t receive the type of praise that Drake was looking for, akin to Lamar’s critically acclaimed “good kid, m.A.A.d city.”ĭespite many considering it a very good album, it was never thought of as a classic, much to Drake’s displeasure. He had heard the praise lauded upon his peers, mainly Kendrick Lamar, and wanted to provide a hard-hitting classic of his own. It was obvious from the opening track that he felt the need to prove something. My first true experience with Drake’s music was “Nothing Was the Same.” A high school freshman at the time, I illegally downloaded the album onto my laptop and spent the next hour in my homeroom listening to the best hour of music Drake had released up until that point.