"I'm mischievous, but I'm calculated."
-Aubrey Drake Graham
When I moved into my dorm suite freshman year of college the thing my then new roommates and I had in common was our love for music, and more specifically our love for hip-hop. Three of my four roommates were going into the music business (Two as hip-hop producers and one on the business side of things) and I had a true passion for music (because I wasn’t cool in high school) so that combination made for interesting fodder amongst the roomies. We would fight over who had control of the apartment speakers (since they were music nerds we had the dopest speakers, must have been from Best Buy or something). If I had the control I’d always play Kanye to promote my Kanye agenda (An agenda I was pushing with a tenacity and fervor unknown to secular culture at that time). I won most of these speaker battles because I cared the most (this is how life works) but every now and then one of them would get control of the speakers. One beautiful day in October that happened; one of them got control of the speakers and started playing "Nothing Was The Same." This was important for two reasons:
For one, "Nothing Was The Same" had just come out and I hadn’t taken the time to listen to it yet. Here I was trying to do homework and Drake’s new album was bumping enough that my Geology book was moving on the countertop (Geology homework never stood a chance). These speakers we had were the type where you could really determine if the snare drums were dope; if you felt like you were floating, amen. By first listen the album was good.
Secondly, The larger reason this was important was at the time I was not a big Drake fan. I was too into my love of Kanye that whenever somebody talked about how much they loved Drake I felt (softly) offended and protective over Kanye’s seat on the throne. I didn’t need to spite Drake to save Kanye but the tension that existed in my mind was palpable, even if it didn’t exist anywhere else. But at this point, I was finally able to let Drake exist somewhere in the comic book of hip hop that was in my head. Before that, I treated Drake like he was Chingy (very unfair, I realize this in hindsight) and poo-pooed anything he did. I was too in love with Kanye to recognize the brilliance of Mr. Aubrey Graham (Wheelchair Jimmy).
For years, Drake has been my musical blind spot, but I suspect this isn’t a new phenomenon. Some people may say this is a Jordan/Pippen thing, but really, I think it's a Magic/Kareem thing. People usually remember Magic as the greater player even though Kareem was quite amazing himself. For eight to ten years, Kareem was the best basketball player in the world; granted, half of those years he was in Milwaukee. Which is maybe why people usually view Magic as better because his best years were when the Lakers were in the finals almost every year. Magic and The Lakers being great also happened to coincide with Larry Bird and The Boston Celtics being great and together, Magic and Bird took the league to new heights that previously didn’t seem possible for a league that used to have its finals on tape delay.
Like Kareem at his peak, Drake’s music is right there as far as quality with anybody making music in today's world. I think the distinction to be made is that Drake doesn’t seem as important to Hip-Hop as Kanye (Kanye makes the unforgettable hits and has proven to be the best indicator of where the sound is headed). In this scenario, Kanye is less like Magic Johnson and more like Michael Jordan, while Drake is still like Kareem.
One day not too long from now Drake will likely have more success in music than Kanye (he probably has already had more success than Kanye from 2013 on), while Kendrick Lamar will have more success than both of them (Not in totality, just in the moment). Drake reminds me of an effective politician; he doesn’t change the direction of anything but when the game is changed he comes and plays it better than everybody else. He’s got a lot of Bill Clinton in him; whether you like Clinton or not, you can’t argue against his effectiveness as a politician (This is not a “good president” or “bad president” argument).
When I first heard “Hold On, We’re Going Home” on that beautiful October afternoon, I immediately decided that Drake should come out with a melodies album. His own version of "808’s & Heartbreak" without the autotune (because nobody will ever better convey feeling in an album, and autotune is all about conveying feeling). My roommates said I was crazy, “Why would Drake come out with a melodies album?” They said. Although he always had a trace of poppy-ness, people couldn’t conceptualize Drake going pop. Even today people can’t conceptualize Drake going full pop. But that moment when I first heard “Hold On, We’re Going Home” I felt it. I feel it even stronger now after listening to an interview he did the week of The Grammys with the “OVO Sound” radioshow in an episode on Apple Music’s Beats 1 station. Disputing his hit “Hotline Bling” winning for best rap song at the Grammy Awards in February, he said: “The only category they can manage to fit me in is in a rap category, maybe because I’ve rapped in the past or because I’m black. I can’t figure out why.” The song should have been considered in the pop category, for example, he said. Not only is Drake correct that “Hotline Bling” should’ve been nominated in the Pop category and not the rap category, he also may have unintentionally uttered the first interesting thing I’ve heard a music artist say since Kanye was going on his famous press tour of (screaming about Nike, Google, Louie Vuitton, etc…) 2013 and for some reason it went basically unnoticed.
What I take away from that interview is Drake’s next album might be full pop. Usually when you feel a certain way about your art, that feeling is reflected in your work the years after that feeling takes over your perception of how you feel about your work. For example, Kanye West’s debut album was titled The College Dropout even though he had dropped out of school over seven years before that album came out. If Drake feels that he should’ve been recognized more for Pop, and he feels like he’s more of a pop star than a rapper it seems as if Drake’s next album might be full pop. Don’t take my word for it, he said as much recently in that same OVO Sound interview, “There’s pop obligations they have, and I fluked out. I fluked out and got one of the biggest songs of the year that is a pop song and I’m proud of that. I love the rap world and I love the rap community… I write pop songs for a reason. I want to be like Michael Jackson. I want to be like artists that I looked up to. Those are pop songs, but I never get any credit for that,” he speculated. “By the way, I’m speaking to you as a winner from last night. I won two awards last night, but I don’t even want them because it just feels weird for some reason. It just doesn’t feel right to me.”
This doesn’t seem abrupt, it actually feels like a long time coming. Similar to how Kanye was really making "The College Dropout" as soon as he dropped out of college (whether it was consciously or subconsciously, I don’t know), it seems like Drake’s entire music career has been headed towards this point. Although he’s made some great hip-hop songs, his entire career feels like one long journey towards being a pop artist; making those catchy hits that everyone likes that deep down probably have no meaning or if they have meaning then they say nothing interesting enough that your mind will ever be taken to new places (think Michael Jackson, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, etc…) That is not a criticism of the direction Drake is headed, or the careers of MJ and friends, it’s just the truth about the pro’s and cons of being a pop artist (The music The Beatles made in their touring years falls into this category).
If Drake does drop a pop album I hope it’s epic; the idea of Drake winning best pop album knocks the logic out of everything we know music in popular culture to be. It would be legendary and Drake’s power and importance in the culture would only grow stronger (This must be what he’s thinking), almost guaranteeing one day we’ll sit in a movie theatre and watch a movie about a Canadian boy who become the most popular person in American culture called, “Drake (or Wheelchair Jimmy).” If he drops a rap album I’ll listen to every second of every song and hope that its good, but not too good. I don’t like the idea of Drake being considered the best rapper in popular culture. That’s a world I don’t want to live in and a world I don’t have enough time to explain. One thing is for certain: If the past is any indication of the future, whatever direction Drake chooses he’ll choose it well.
