It has been four years since Drake’s breakout album "Thank Me Later," and he’s basically an album away from being king of the world. All criticisms aside, the guy ascended from the wheelchair to the peak of Babylon in a few years — and none of it ever made any sense.
Up until a few months ago I thought Drake was the official soundtrack for selfies. But for some reason, Drake always seemed cool. I distinctly remember a conversation a few months ago while at a house show in Tempe where your average hardcore kid and your local record store snob geeked out about Drake’s newest album "Nothing Was the Same" and feeling terribly left out.
Why didn’t I understand Drake?
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Months went by and the memory continued to bother me. Of course, I could have started to listen to Drake at any point in time and stop this madness, but something was keeping me from Young Money’s chosen son.
Until now.
This past week I took my Drake journey, and what I found was not what I expected from the music.
Level 1 Drake — The Introduction
Drake is known for being the sensitive playboy. It is my understanding that it is mandatory for his hits to be played at every party ever thrown. This understanding influenced the first few days of this assignment heavily.
To be frank, I started to believe that Drake fever was an interesting form of post-irony — where people would get really excited about this incredibly over-the-top musician who is only capable of talking about how successful he is. While it was disarming to me at first, I could see the perspective after a few days.
At this point I had told all of my friends about this story, and it became the joke of the weekend.
“Put on Drake!”
The usual songs would be played — particularly party hits "Started from the Bottom" and "The Motto" — and we basked in the joke.
In retrospect, I think this is what constitutes level 1 Drake.
On the surface, Drake is just that rapper who created G-Eazy. He’s in love with himself; he loves to drink and smoke; he is surrounded by a harem of women at all times; and there is no material item that is too much for the artist.
Some of his lyrics reflect this ethic. For example, in “All Me,” he sings on and on about how he has everything; so much that he can’t account for it all. The production, however, is something to be revered.
Drake’s partnership with producer Noah “40” Shebib is the key to the artist’s success. Shebib measures the balance between sensitivity and bass bumping so perfectly that it’s hard to find yourself sitting stoically in any song. The most important aspect of Shebib’s ability to craft ambient club hits is his ability to produce in ways that makes Drake seem like he knows what he is talking about. This is most apparent on "The Language."
The lyrics of the song are, again, typical party boy rap lyrics glamorizing drugs and alcohol while championing women from Miami, but the song's production creates an atmosphere that adds depth to an otherwise meaningless song. Instead of feeling like you’re in a club, you feel as if you are living out a scene from a movie with a slow-burning, atmospheric rhythm playing the background of your narrative.
At this point in my journey, Drake’s success didn’t make much sense. Like many rappers today, he leaned heavily on the production to carry him through and didn’t seem to carry much depth with his lyrics. Sure, quite a few songs featured Drake crooning sensitively about broken relationships, but these potentially profound moments fell short because of the various disarming devices put in place.
Little did I know that these disarming devices in his music were the keys to the castle.
Level 2 — The Drakethrough
After wading through the surface level Drake, I decided to go back to "Thank Me Later" and take a closer look.
Before I continue, it’s important to understand the context of "Thank Me Later." Coming out in 2010, "TML" is the first album where Drake really became Drake. Up until this point, he was the epitome of your average rapper. Much of the aforementioned criticisms especially apply to early Drake. In fact, it’s near criminal! But "TML" changed thing everything. This album is Drake in his purest form. Not only is "TML" the first breakout album, but it also sits at the peak of the bell curve of his career. Artistically, he has never topped this album.
A lot of the same flaws seemed to be present on this album as the others, especially the lazy rhyme scheme. But after pulling up the lyrics and reading along, the deep level of inner conflict Drake suffered from blew me away.
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The introductory song to this album, “Fireworks,” sets the theme for the rest of album with its opening lines: “Money changed everything, I wonder how life would go / From the concrete, who knew that a flower would grow.” These introspective lyrics were complimented well with a beautiful Alicia Key’s chorus, which goes on repeat, “All I see is fireworks / All I see is fireworks / Every night it’s fireworks.”
My original speculation is that this set the stage for yet another championing of his success, but it really provokes a much more sincere, personal struggle: Is fame really worth it?
Doing or seeing the same thing any night would get old, and it seems that Drake is saying just this about his fame. Further, in verse two, he goes in to how the fame is devouring his relationships with lines like, “What happened between us that night always seemed to trouble me / Now all these gossip brags want to cover me / And you making it seem like it happened that way because of me.”
As a result of his fame, Drake is unable to maintain steady relationships. And through listening to almost all of his music, that seems to be the only thing Drake really wants, while the rest is just accessory.
Throughout the album we find moments of candid frustration from Drake. In “The Resistance” we learn of his old girlfriend, Lisa, and her longing for the “old Drake.” Drake then ponders when it all changed, leading to several serious revelations about his life.
The depth only continues to sink in the second track of the album, “Karaoke.” This is probably my favorite song on the record, as it not only reflects on Drake’s personal life, but on the music industry itself and the concessions artists have to make at the hands of studios.
Similar themes from “Fireworks” are present here, but there’s one line in "Karaoke" that speaks volumes about Drake’s work: “I remember when you thought I was joking / Now I’m all singing karaoke.”
Could this be Drake’s way of telling us about outside pressures affecting music? We all know that it happens, and I’m probably not alone in assuming that it happens to Drake all of the time, but this carefully placed lyric is ingenious.
In nearly every song there is an instance of these themes of insecurity, struggling with fame, and balancing a personal life while flourishing in the spotlight. Although these lyrics come off sincere, nothing seems to be totally real until the second to last track of the album, “Cece’s Interlude.”
Beautifully ambient drums and a steady synth in the background, “Cece’s Interlude” most directly confronts the struggles of Drake.
In a fashion similar to Achilles in the "Illiad," Drake ponders his two destinies as a demi-god: a hard and fast life of fame and money, or a quiet more traditional life where he went to college and was able to find love in his dorm room. The song’s placement at the end of the album makes sense: It is a summation of internal argument he has been having throughout the work. Consistently, we hear Drake flip back and forth between the pride he has for his work and success and the disgusts and regret he has for maybe overstepping his limits, ultimately obstructing what he deems to be real happiness.
Level 3 — You Are Drake
After spending a week listening to Drake’s music, I feel like I have gotten to know a tortured soul who is torn between what should be and what could be. Underneath all of the 808’s and popped bottles, there is an incredibly sensitive soul looking for human connection.
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In this way, I think Drake is something more than a rapper, but a concept that applies to all humanity.
Some might cringe at the thought of Drake bearing the human race’s flag, but his expression of universal insecurities in a veiled fashion leads me to think this is true. Most college students suffer from severe insecurities. It comes with the territory — as we are all in the same limbo trying to figure out what is next. Are we proud of our accomplishments? Sure — we made it to university. But this pride does not hide the deep-rooted dilemmas that are boiling underneath our consciences at every waking moment.
Drake is love; Drake is life.
Reach the reporter at zjenning@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @humanzane
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