For the Record

A little less than two years ago, Drake’s second album Take Care – an 80 minute epic on love, failed relationships and the pressures of budding fame – was released to staggering success. Demonstrating marked growth in maturity and spawning as many singles as the standard Beyoncé album (as well as that ridiculously shallow, infuriatingly cliché cultural adage I’m sure everyone will, try as they might, never forget), the record thrust Drake into an international spotlight while silencing skeptical detractors of his earlier efforts. An extensive, acclaimed tour and Grammy win cemented his place as one of the top rappers in the game, though still with room to develop. So what, if anything, changed during the lead-up to his most recent release, Nothing Was The Same (NWTS)?

Two things are immediately obvious: the beats are better and the ego is bigger. Way bigger. Too big, in fact, to give legitimacy to his oft-inflated reputation as acutely self-aware, introspective and real. So big that it taints the moments of genuine insight and honesty that he belts with admittedly far more poise and precision than ever before. The fame, as some might say, went to his head.

Drake wastes no time letting listeners know just how good he thinks he is. “Tuscan Leather,” a six-minute banger named after overpriced cologne (if that alone doesn’t say enough about the ensuing track), kicks off NWTS.  The natural braggadocio all too common in mainstream rap and hip-hop pokes through a bumping beat pretty quickly – favorable comparisons to Dwight Howard and Martin Scorcese, references of fine Italian wine and allusions to that ridiculously shallow, infuriatingly cliché cultural adage are all fine, whatever, he earned the right to some self-congratulation. That he rubs your face in the fact that he’s indulging in an intro for about 3 minutes too many isn’t even that bad, either, considering the ten seconds of qualifying criticism and Noah “40” Shebib’s sick production. But it’s woefully clear that Drake spent little time listening to his serious competitors during that hefty chunk of time between releases. That, or he’s just kidding himself with quips like “this is nothin’ for the radio, but they’ll still play it though.” His songs are downright bloated with tailor-made, single-selling hooks; does he really think that sales figures and seemingly paradoxical (but actually not at all) airplay proves his worth when, say, Kanye outright informed the world of his intention to forsake both? That the game has not evolved? That success is not about creative growth, but pure figures?

All that aside, Drake swiftly settles down to business in the following track “Furthest Thing,” in which he addresses the personal contradictions and emotional struggles felt while, as opposed to other rappers, taking his work seriously. The melody is slippery-smooth and the drum machine tightly claps at all the right moments. He briefly flirts with patronization but doesn’t affront too severely. A solid track all-around.

And then comes “Started From the Bottom,” a track so annoying and pandering that it borders on offensive. Here, he squanders chance to delve into his past — e.g. conflicts with his mother, pains of achieving independence — free of criticism before devolving into a kitschy 2 A.M. after-party-blues mantra (“F*** a fake friend, where your real friends at?”). But he practically begs listeners to point out how he really started from the middle with laughable lines assuring us that he was indeed hungry from time to time.

The positive from this is that the worst is over after the third track. He comes to shine when he raps about what he knows — disillusionment on “Wu-Tang Forever,” miscommunication on the stand-out “From Time,” youthful naiveté on “Connect” — and stumbles when he loses sight of himself (“The Language”), unknowingly touches on misogyny (“Own It”) and becomes straight-up condescending (“305 to My City”).

None of the songs are unlistenable, though; each track flows like silk and pulses brilliantly against the senses. The problem is that they blend too well together. Though ripe with more dimension, depth and darker undertones than its predecessor, Nothing Was The Same lacks the diversity and dynamism that his contemporaries explore to much greater dividends. Drake has surely perfected the artistic framework found on all of his releases thus far, but his lack of exploration accommodates a narrow range of listener emotion; and if he really wants to reach the level of Kanye and Kendrick on the main stage or Earl and Danny Brown (whose brand new release Old far exceeds the reaches of Drake’s) on the down low, he needs to dig a little deeper, reflect a little longer, tell us all something we don’t already know. The rap game is evolving; if he wants to compete, he needs to stop giving us only more of the same.