There are references here to specific people (“Redemption”), places (“Weston Road Flows”), and experiences (“Views”), along with nods to the influence of the city’s Caribbean population on “With You,” “Controlla,” and “Too Good” (which just happens to feature Rihanna).
“I made a decision last night that I would die for it,” Drake raps on “9.” “Just to show the city what it takes to be alive for it.” Drake’s presence eclipsed Toronto just about as soon as So Far Gone dropped, but the city-and what it thinks of him-was never far from his mind. Views, which followed two wildly successful projects in 2015 that he’d branded as mixtapes- If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and the Future collab What a Time to Be Alive-would confirm him as both, his penchant for immaculate songwriting still fully intact and the pressures of existing as the most popular voice in rap, as well as his hometown’s most successful export, weighing heavy on his mind. He looks less like the superhero he’d made himself into over the course of a roughly six-year rise as singer-songwriter extraordinaire and more like a troubled monarch. Because that’s really what it’s about.On the cover of his fourth studio album Views, Drake looks down from atop Toronto’s CN Tower, paying homage to the city’s notoriously frigid winter temperatures in a heavyweight shearling coat and high-cut boots. “But when I do take a look at the broader scope of things, it’s often … Even though I don’t directly, literally address things in my music, I’ve always tried to make music that transcends gender, nationality-to try and unify people. “I obviously spend a lot of time in my own world,” he told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe in 2016. Like Kanye, Drake is as much a curator as he is a creator, an artist capable of arranging collaborators from a universe of styles and making them all fit into his personal vision-an approach that has made him one of the most definitive rappers and pop figures of his era. Though the feelings remain (always feelings, big feelings), the sound-for the most part, courtesy of longtime affiliate Noah “40” Shebib-is always changing: a little dancehall here (“One Dance”), a little house there (“Passionfruit”), some old New Orleans bounce (“Nice for What”), a bit of Wu-style boom-bap (“Started from the Bottom”), some smooth, to-the-minute trap-soul (“Hotline Bling”).
But most of all, he felt like a person-someone who isn’t canceled by his paradoxes, but defined by them. Critics-and he’s had plenty-like to point out that he started as an actor: He played Jimmy Brooks in the Canadian teen show Degrassi: The Next Generation. Was he an R&B singer who rapped or a rapper who sang? Was he really that sad, or just doing a bit? And if it wasn’t a bit, how could this guy-talented, intuitive, hardworking-really be so down?įrom minute one, there was something a little different about him: He could be confessional, vulnerable, but also incredibly coarse he could make an earnest commitment one minute (“Take Care”) and be drunk-dialing the next (“Marvins Room”) he could convince you he was an underdog from his perch on top of the world (“Started from the Bottom”). After all, he figured, you get someone hanging your name next to Tupac’s, even if it’s only to take a shot at it? You must be doing something right.īorn Aubrey Drake Graham in Toronto in 1986, Drake became-like Tupac-something of a generational voice, a prism for his pop-cultural moment. A couple of years after he broke into the mainstream with 2009’s So Far Gone, Drake was browsing art in Los Angeles when a piece caught his eye: a big neon sign that read, “LESS DRAKE, MORE TUPAC.” For a minute, he felt angry, embarrassed-he wanted to walk up and rip the sign off the wall.
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