The Cypher: Drake's Moment

Ramon Ramirez
Tuesday, June 15 at 5:31 p.m.

No, not at all. Drake's Thank Me Later has swelled into the most polarizing hip-hop release by a newcomer since The Slim Shady LP. Purists rally around aesthetics and privilege, heads attack the skills (though to be fair, most of the ending phrases on "Fireworks" feature the convenient inclusion of the word "it"), most critics think the album is just ok.

TML is a collection of good songs and great songs with two clunkers we'll attack first. The closer, "Thank Me Now," though solid with the bars, features a throwaway beat and a ghastly chorus that fuses a pseudo-Cuban accent (Drake as the shape-shifting poser from nowhere) and really nasally, pointless background crooning (Drake as the condescending, cheesy, would-be r&b singer). In other words, it's why people hate Drake in three minutes.

"Cece's Interlude" is deeper than "I wish I wasn't famous" but most of us missed it because the song is bad. Per a helpful commenter on the Slate piece:

"What happens in the narrative Drake puts forward after he utters that 'I wish I wasn't famous' complaint? He gets laughed at. The joke he's making is on him, stepping outside of the first person and crafting that exchange without disrupting rhythm or explaining himself, heady stuff. CeCe says 'You just want what you can't have' in response to Drake's whining..."

Save for these misfires, I dig the rest. You?


Reggie Ugwu
Tuesday, June 15 at 7:57 p.m.

It's interesting, I have to disagree with you on the "Thank Me Now" front. Friend of ATG, Terence "Trackjacka" Finley, also singles it out as a misfire, but I quite like it. I love the way he says "You can thank me now!" and "Oh my goodness, you're welcome." Throughout, he sounds more unhinged and less trapped inside his own head then anywhere else on the record. He just spits. "Mahalo from the hardest act to follow." It's the counterpoint to the moodily self-reflective opener "Fireworks." On one he's rhyming like Common Sense, and the other he lets his swag do the talking a la Jay Hova.

"Fireworks" is good. I love the line about being a gentlemen where he actually rhymes something with "cutlery." That's gotta be a first. But it's impossible to hear that song and not think of "Lust for Life," the slow-burner that Drake used to start off So Far Gone. Last time it was a bold statement, this time it feels unremarkable. Alicia's contribution is an afterthought. 

"The Resistance" is similarly a retread. Drake talks about his fears of being a rap star over a beat that's a little bit "Houstatlantavegas," a little bit "The Calm."

"Cece's" leaves a bad taste in the mouth, I agree. At least "Bria's Interlude" on SFG was about sex.

Two songs I unequivocally love: #1. "Karaoke." The masters of understated pop known as Francis and the Lights turn this skittering, slightly uptempo track into something genuinely sublime. And Drake's voice is in top form. Thematically, it's like a sequel to my all-time favorite Drake song and our Best Song of 09, "Successful" - the rise to the top is making it impossible to keep the woman he loves. #2. "Unforgettable." I'm on record as saying we need more Aaliyah-influenced music in pop today. Drake agrees. The sample that opens and closes this song is haunting. The beat is dreamy and submerged in a pool of hazy ambivalence like all Drake beats, but it's also kinetic and Jeezy's presence makes the whole affair sound BIG. The album needed more moments like these.




Ramon Ramirez
June 17 at 12:41 p.m.

Agreed. Total lack of bigness.

Drake's goal is to soundtrack our summer and even anthems are sparsely arranged, moody and devoid of sonic boom. T.I.'s guest verse feels as whispered-in-the-ear as it does efficient and "Fancy" is produced by fucking Swizz Beatz. Kanye West's production talents are wasted on quiet storm afterthoughts. Timbaland's album-closing beat comes from a creative rut.

Most disappointing is Boi-1da. The equally high-rising newbie grand slams on So Far Gone, delivers 2009's quintessential summer jam, victory laps on a portly lead single ("Over") stuffed to the gills with pomp and circumstance and strings and the rest of his production credits are sub par. "Miss Me" is a tired retread of Little Brother's "Dreams;" I've heard the Nicki Minaj-featuring "Up All Night" maybe 20 times and I can't remember how its beat sounds.


Reggie Ugwu
June 17 at 6:43 p.m.

What I do remember is that Nicki Minaj demolished it. Her video made me hate her, but the girl may have a first-rate spitter somewhere beneath the gimmicky exterior. A topic for another day.

What about the implications for hip-hop? By now, even The New York Times acknowledges that our '09 most-potential pick is the future of the genre. And yet it's not clear to me that Drake knows which way to take his own career, much less hip-hop. Thank Me Later represents the maturation of a new generation, one that we've dedicated a lot of ink to. Even though SFG covered all the same territory a year and a half ago, TML's success as a bonafide blockbuster means that we're definitely going to see its formula refracted through some number of mini Drakes - just as Kanye's ascent gave rise to stylists like Cudi, Theophilus and Drake himself.

But what is the Drake model? There's middle-class malaise, open romanticism, tortured self-examination to the point of self-obsession. He's a classic modernist who thoroughly rejects nearly everything that was embraced by the art form 5 years ago. And his message is now uber-mainstream - innately understood by the millions of Clinton babies who were always to some degree removed from the gangster and hustler shit of the last decade. Hip-hop has been inherited by a generation of would-be reality stars and internet celebrities at the center of their own social universes. Drake moans about the pains of being famous and his fans instantly echo the sentiment on their Facebook statuses. We've reached a point when talking about the trappings of materialism and the struggle to connect and find true love over moody pop atmospherics is firmly within the terrain of rappers.

Any guess at how long the new era lasts? What happens between now and the next Drake album? What will the next Drake album be like?


Ramon Ramirez
June 29 at 9:09 a.m.

The era lasts until the next Drake album. He's self-aware enough to realize the style is starting to rot. Drake's follow-up will be produced by Wavves, feature detached indie rock crooning and verses paralleling Jay-Z in 1998 when Hova rapped about hanging it all up and unleashing Memphis Bleek. Or it'll sound like a crisper, more realized epic about stargazing and long nights alone.

Drake's core fans are a class beneath us (editor's note: Reggie is 24, Ramon 25) and the kids love him unconditionally. The Austin concert back in May was a groundswell. Rich jocks from Westlake snuck in totally sweet flasks and acted drunk. Drill team girls swooned. Urban kids with flat-bill, fitted lids rapped along. The rock influence -- Drake's live band is expansive, noisy, messy, mostly crowds 40's bare bones programming -- was likewise an afterthought with the senior skip day crowd. Point is, acting like Drizzy's rise is anything less than an earnest, grassroots movement is incorrect. Whatever the guardians disseminating his propaganda, once these things get to mile-a-minute surfing fans, work rises via a rigorous meritocracy.

It should be noted that since our previous correspondence, my wife and I packed up a UHaul trailer and drove to Washington, D.C. Not to be that guy that touts his demographics for liberal credits, but the Eckington neighborhood is 90% African-American and people are on that Drake. He's all over radio, bleeding from cars, served with cookouts, right on track.

It should come as no surprise, then, that since our previous correspondence Drake went and sold over 467,000 copies of Thank Me Later. As Eskay pointed out in an f-bomb laden rant, just under what Jay-Z's Blueprint III moved opening week.

Likewise, MTV premiered a solid, cosigning documentary on the tense months leading up to June 15. Have you seen it? I was sincerely inspired; specifically during the bit wherein we're told that producer/engineer/tour manager/best friend Noah "40" Shebib has Multiple Sclerosis and Drake's biggest fear in life is 40's potential death.

It certainly contextualizes hook lines like "I don't really know who I'm a lose this year" and brotherhood-first boasts like "I'm so tired of being subtle, it's just me, 40, O and Nek standing in a huddle." There's few things more important than loyalty and Drake's insistence on keeping the movement in-house is greatly appreciated. Take note, LeBron.

Maybe it was the gray drive perfectly accented by TML, or the qualifying media, but I'm falling for this record. Granted, it remains a paralleling sequel with less bravado, lyrics and excitement but it's still well-segued (he saves all his guests for the second half and stacks tracks 7-11: a bold and calculated move) and delectable. And we haven't even harped on the album's best song.

The apprehension we heard on "Fear" manifests on "Light Up" with perfect lyrics, delivery and the greatest rapper of all-time backdooring the moment in vintage form. It gives me goosebumps. I even like the "Kelsey grammar" line and here we get the most pointed chorus lyric of the album: "who would've thought I'd be caught in this life lesson?" Christ, everything Jay says after "Drake, here's how they gon come at you" kicks kingly knowledge.

How have the repeated spins left you? Talk me off this ledge.




Reggie Ugwu
July 7 at 4:20 p.m.

At spin 25 I'm back where I started. The album is good. No hate here. You're right to fall for "Light Up." But it's very safe. He did what we know he can do. I'll be excited if and when Drake's peculiar and modern bundle of influences gives us another unique hip-hop moment to theorize about. We've already talked about the bits of Yeezy in him, but Kanye is a relentless experimenter. Drake may just be the crooning rapper guy. We don't know yet. He once said that So Far Gone represented him "going left," but then his life exploded and he turned it into a formula. For a guy this talented, you've gotta hope he puts the formulas away.