(mellow hip-hop music)
10 years after his
breakout EP "So Far Gone,"
Drake's legacy is in a firm,
yet complicated position.
Undeniably, Drake is one of hip-hop's
biggest game-changers ever,
and has a good chance of becoming
the best selling hip-hop
artist of all time.
But despite his big
status, and in some ways
because of his status,
the shift in the masses
from celebrating Drake to hating on Drake
was quick and intense.
In particular, we will look at how
increasing commercial success,
ghost-writing allegations,
and constant time in the limelight
have changed the popular opinion of Drake
from a goofy, non-threatening
Canadian hit-maker
to one of hip-hop's most clown rappers.
As we know, Drake is as
much of a pop artist today
as he is a hip-hop and an R&B artist.
But despite having obvious
crossover appeal from the start,
he resided more in the hip-hop realm
than the pop realm for years.
His first two projects
ever, "Room for Improvement"
and "Comeback Season,"
were mostly exhibitions
of Drake's rapping ability,
including remixes of
hits such as "Kick Push"
and "Barry Bonds Freestyle."
While "Room for Improvement"
did give us "Replacement Girl,"
Drake's singing and melodic raps
were still seen as an
addition to the raps,
rather than his main skillset.
When the seminal "So Far Gone" dropped,
he gave us some of his
best rapping songs ever,
like "Say What's Real" and "Fear."
He also fully debuted
his sentimental nature
and R&B tendencies, and
they were either seen as
a conflict with his rapping or the thing
that elevated him past the other rappers.
The hip-hop community spent
the next four to five years
waiting on every Drake
feature, every loose song,
and every album for the verse
that would convince them
that he was the best rapper out,
especially with Kendrick
Lamar putting the pressure on.
Drake responded to this
challenge with determination,
giving us some of the most
memorable verses of the decade,
including his first verses
in "Over" and "Headlines,"
his feature on "Stay Schemin,"
"5AM in Toronto," and "0 to 100."
Basically, up until
"Views," Drake's rapping
was quality enough and consistent enough
to keep him in the rap GOAT conversation.
Even Joe Budden, in his infamous
love/hate relationship with Drizzy,
argued that Drake was at one point
on a seven-year run of no whack verses
in the "Duppy Freestyle"
episode of his podcast.
Debatable, but still
significant coming from Budden.
Of course, during his run of quality raps,
Drake still dropped plenty
of his trademark symp hits,
including "Marvin's Room" and
"Hold On, We're Going Home."
But along with Meek Mills's
ghost-writing accusation,
which we'll discuss later,
the event that really took
Drake out of the rap GOAT conversation
and into the pop world,
was his release of "VIEWS."
With a 20-song track list,
and heavy dance hall influence
in the production, Drake's
fourth official LP "VIEWS"
was the project that cemented his status
as a global pop star.
While Drake's projects and singles
have been doing pop
numbers for quite some time
before "VIEWS," the album's
sound and focus points,
the singles "One Dance,"
"Controlla," and "Too Good,"
show Drake's clear intention
to take over the charts,
instead of trying to win over rap fans.
As discussed in a previous
HipHopMadness video,
how Kendrick made Drake
give up on a classic album,
the language Drake uses in
social media and his lyrics
to discuss his artistic ambitions,
around the time "VIEWS" dropped,
had much more to do with going
number one on the Hot 100
and celebrating the
streaming and sales records
he was setting.
While lines like, "Got
the Billboard melodies.
Rap is somethin' I do on the side,"
on 2 Chainz's record "Big Amount" in 2016,
it was clear that trying
to convince the rap world
he deserved consideration
as a great rapper
was no longer worth it to him.
As he's gone on to put out
more playlist-like albums
with bigger commercial
ambitions, much of the rap world
finally decided to dislike
Drake as an artist.
It's no secret that the
uncovering of Quentin Miller
did a lot to damage
Drake's image as a rapper,
given hip-hop's intense standard
of writing 100% of your verses
to be considered one of the greatest.
While Meek Mill and Drake have
since squashed their beef,
and we now know Meek's
infamous tweet came out
of a moment of pettiness,
it doesn't change the
fact that Drake's verse
on Meek's Single "R.I.C.O."
was written by Quentin Miller,
and Miller is uncredited on the song.
And despite Miller being
credited on several songs
from Drake's "If You're
Reading This It's Too Late,"
leaked reference tracks
of the songs "10 Bands"
and "Know Yourself"
showed Quentin played a significant role
in writing the songs.
Quentin Miller's take
on how things went down
has been very consistent,
including assertions
that he did not ghost-write
on "If You're Reading This,"
and that the album was mostly done
by the time Miller was involved.
In a push-back against the
viral story that Drake did not
write his own raps on
"If You're Reading This,"
Miller insisted that he
watched Drake pen the bar-heavy
"6PM in New York," and even
freestyle the song "Madonna."
Despite testimonies from the man himself,
the story grew too large
for anyone to double back.
Learning Drake has a
ghost writer is comparable
to knowing Barry Bonds took steroids
on his way to the
all-time home run record,
or that the 73-to-9 Warriors got Durant.
When you're at the top,
the expectations of doing it the right way
are raised higher.
Even if the talent and
previous glory can't be denied,
it only takes a small
slip-up for people to
put an asterisk on a current
winner's accomplishments.
In the rap world, one ghost-written verse,
and a couple of reference tracks,
was enough for many to remove Drake
from the rap GOAT conversation,
and continue to speculate
that he doesn't write as many
lyrics as we think he does.
Of course, the ghost-writing allegations
came just two months before
the Drake and Future project
"What a Time to Be Alive,"
and less than a year before
the release of the
commercial behemoth "VIEWS."
If Drake wasn't entirely
sure about going full pop,
the chaos caused by the Meek Mills beef
flipped that switch for him.
Soon after, the boy hit a
level of fame and success
that solidified him as
one of the hated people
in the entertainment business.
Drizzy has already been
great at being a celebrity.
His very first PR and
marketing accomplishment
was turning the jokes about
him being soft, emotional,
light-skinned, and a former actor,
into the strongest aspects of his brand.
The way he was able to
roll with the punches
of trendy jokes, such as
"Drake's the type of" memes,
and the Drake crying animation,
in reference to his past
as Wheelchair Jimmy are impressive.
By doubling down on these
comedic narratives of himself,
songs like "Marvin's
Room," "Find Your Love,"
and "Hold On, We're Going Home,"
became even more infectious.
Each of the songs just
mentioned have gone at least
three-times platinum in the United States.
Having handled the mockery of
his masculinity, love life,
and thespian past, there wasn't
much more anyone could say
about Drake to keep his persona from
growing as large as it has.
From lint-rolling courtside
at a Raptors game,
to jokingly being called
soft by Katy Perry,
to even allegedly being
peed on in a movie theater
by a T.I. associate, the
only dig at Drake's persona
that has really disrupted his
time as the biggest rapper
in the world, is Pusha
T's secret child reveal.
But by the time "Story of Adidon" dropped,
Drake's viral prowess was
already out of control.
By tapping into genres such
as Afrobeats, dance hall,
and grime, Drake has been
able to give the same stories
a fresher sonic foundation
to be served on.
Jokes of his sentimentality and softness
have been replaced by jokes
of his culture-hopping,
lingual adaption, and increasingly
hardened tough guy image.
The 2018 version of
the Drake type of memes
are the British road man,
and Jamaican Drake memes.
Chris Rock accurately pointed out
in a 2014 Sway interview
that Drake's image,
unlike most successful mainstream rappers,
has gone from vulnerable to tough.
Since everyone's first experience with
Drake's music and image is
that of a hopeless romantic
who takes subliminal
shots, seeing Drake bulk up
and talk more (bleep) is
even more reason to hate him.
Then there are Drake's
ties to the sports world,
the most notable being his
role as a Toronto Raptors
team ambassador since 2013.
The improbable and
history-making playoff run
of the 2019 NBA Champion Toronto Raptors
have given Drake even more of a platform
to be talked about 24/7,
putting much of his
goofy persona on display
as he cheered for his hometown team
while trolling the Golden
State Warrior stars,
many of whom we know to be his friends.
Along with the pop shift in his own music,
and the growth of his personal brand
through sports partnerships and
cross-cultural associations,
Drake's mightest touch for feature verses
have been as strong as ever,
appearing on songs such as
Blocboy JB's "Look Alive,"
Bad Bunny's "MIA," and
Meek Mills's "Going Bad."
Drake has been on six of
the top ten Hot 100 hits
as a featured artist since 2018,
including Travis Scott's
"SICKO MODE" going number one.
Whether it's a beef, a
feature, a corny line,
a viral music video, or a courtside clip,
people are forced to talk about Drake,
and whether people hate him or not,
hip-hop fans collectively
love talking about him.
It's this ability to
take jabs at his persona,
and turn flaws into attractions,
that makes it so easy for
Drake's face and music
to be everywhere.
Unsurprisingly, a person
who's constantly in your face,
even when you aren't
really trying to see him,
is easier to dislike than a person
who isn't always the center of attention.
While personal reasons for
disliking Drake may vary,
the collective agreement within hip-hop,
that it's cool to hate Drake,
is firmly rooted in his
shifting approach to music,
the stain of ghost-writing allegations,
and his constantly present name and face.
Despite the current attitude around Drake,
many of today's top hip-hop artists
have countered the idea
that Drake deserves
the hate that he gets.
ScHoolboy Q, in a Hot 97
interview this past spring,
claimed that Drake is not
only an underrated rapper,
but one of the greats.
In a Jimmy Fallon appearance
promoting his 2017 SNL hosting gig,
Chance the Rapper claimed,
"We live in a time
where people are ashamed to
say how much they love Drake,
or enjoy what he does."
21 Savage also threw praise
Drizzy's way in 2018,
saying that he doesn't
get enough credit for
going out of his way to pull
a new artist up every year.
While much of the criticism Drake faces
regarding his music and image is valid,
the praise he gets from
his peers and real rappers,
as said by Peter Rosenberg,
has to weigh into the discussion.
The truth of Drake's artistic
credibility and likability,
like most truths, probably
falls somewhere in the middle
of these two viewpoints.
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(mellow hip-hop music)
