If club-bangers are what you’re looking for on Drake’s sophomore album “Take Care,” look away. No, this album does not promote mainstream beats, mainstream lyrics or mainstream anything for that matter. What it does promote are his inner demons and feelings.
“We live in a generation of not being in love, and not being together” he says in break-up ballad “Doing it Wrong.” Drake also confronts issues with his father in “Look What You’ve Done,” when he says “And you tell me I’m just like my father, my one button, you pushed it.”
And perhaps this is what rap needs. It is not often a hip-hop artist will speak of their real life, taking the rose-colored glasses off and using their album as somewhat of a therapy session. Drake took the risk of being an individual in the industry, and it paid off.
“I’m the man, yeah I said it. B*tch I’m the man, don’t you forget it” he says in the song “Shot for Me.”
The question is, will he stay the man? If Drake produces more albums like “Take Care,” it is a good possibility.
While Drake’s freshman album “Thank Me Later” consists of simple beats, a premature cockiness and minimal singing from the rapper, “Take Care” certainly ups the ante. With luxurious and plush beats that mix R&B, hip-hop and soul together, a well-deserved arrogance and over half the album of vocals by Drake himself, “Take Care” fills the voids that “Thank Me Later” left. “I know I exaggerated things, now I got it like that” he raps in “Headlines.”
Rolling Stone magazine calls Drake “A guy with a Jay-Z ego and a Charlie Brown soul.” The rapper combines fame and fortune with melancholy, truthful songs, and he does it well. In “Lord Knows,” he says to his haters, “F*ck you all I claim that whenever, I changed rap forever, the game’s back together.”
The album proves this to be true. And if Drake continues to “Take Care,” there are endless possibilities of where he will take rap along with him. Drake is now compared to hip-hop icons Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Lil’ Wayne. In a song not featured on the album titled “I’m on One” he brags, “The throne is up for the taking, watch me take it.”
Keep it up Drake, and you just might.
