95. Drake, "Take Care"

 

What if you were a fairly big music fan in, like, 1972, and you were like "Led Zeppelin?  Oh, sure, I know the name, but I don't really know any of their songs.  I do love that one meme where he's like 'Yeah' and then like 'No?'  What's a meme?  Oh shit, never mind, you're not ready."  So that's kind of what I'm like with Drake, one of the biggest artists of the 21st century who I know almost nothing about and couldn't really name a single song by.  

[Oh crap I basically used this whole intro the last time I talked about Drake, down to the meme thing.  Felt cute, might delete later, I guess.]

But this project is all about learning new stuff and guess what?  I really like it!  Maybe I like Drake!  This album has very much what I've come to think of as the Drake Sound, that slinky kind of barely-there backing track with Drake speak-rapping.  For me, the Kanye influence on this is humongous, not just from going "Uh" before every verse but also the confessional style and the braggadocio and the constant dropping of references and the tight rhymes, which I really do love.  This is in the very first song:

I think I killed everybody in the game last year
Man, fuck it, I was on, though
And I thought I found the girl of my dreams at the strip club
Mmm-mmm, fuck it, I was wrong, though
Shout out to all my niggas livin' tax-free
Nowadays, it's six figures when they tax me
Oh well, guess you lose some and win some
Long as the outcome is income
You know I want it all and then some
Shout out to Asian girls, let the lights dim some

It's lowkey (or maybe highkey) racist, but the "lights dim some" play on Asian girls and "dim sum" is also pretty witty.  And "Long as the outcome is income," come on, that's gold.  

Or take this, from "HYFR (Hell Ya Fucking Right):"

All my exes live in Texas like I'm George Strait
Or they go to Georgia State where
Tuition is handled by some random nigga that live in Atlanta
That she only see when she feels obligated
Admitted it to me the first time we dated
But she was no angel and we never waited
I took her for sushi, she wanted to fuck
So we took it to go, told 'em don't even plate it

I love it.  There is so much going on here.  The George Strait reference, internally rhyming it with Georgia State, an Atlanta school known for sugar babies.  The description of the date with one, and "don't even plate it."  It's just great.

Lots of guest spots by Lil Wayne, who adds his Wayneness on "HYFR" and "The Real Her" (which also features Andre 3000, more of whom we'll see later).  I feel like Wayne brightens up any project he visits, which is a lot.  And Rihanna drops by on "Take Care," a lovely somg that's built on Jamie xx's song "I'll Take Care of You," which is in turn a remix of the Gil Scott-Heron song of the same name.  Anyway, Rihanna turns in a smoky, sultry chorus; she really makes the song.

So there's a bit of Drake stunting on his rivals (of which there are many - the "Feuds" section of his Wiki reads like a novel), and Drake bragging about his sex life (which appears to be frequent and varied), and Drake generally just talking about what a superior experience being Drake is, but the whole thing has like a weird downer undercurrent that's hard to describe or escape.  Just look at the cover!  Drake has a $100 million estate in Toronto and a $70 million place in LA and he looks like he just got told the cable guy can't come until Wednesday!  

Maybe that's why I like it.  Me and Drake could both be in therapy talking about our, you know, relationships and shit.  His therapist is probably more expensive than mine.  But maybe it's good to know that megamillionaire Drake gets the sads when he's alone at night too, just like the rest of us.  

As much as I enjoyed this album - and I really did! - is it a top 100 of all time album?  I doubt it.

Is this album in my personal Top 500? Yeah, sure! Like I said, 500 is a lot, and I can make some room for this.