By Spence Blazak
I remember the first time I ever heard Drake. I hated it. It was his first single "The Best I Ever Had." Then I saw a picture of him and realized it was the beloved Wheelchair Jimmy from Degrassi, so I gave it another try. It was a masterpiece of modern camp-rap, as I like to call it. It was hilariously bad, and great driving music. My favorite line of the song is "sweatpants, hair tied, chillen with no makeup on, thats when you're the prettiest, I hope that you don't take it wrong." I found it comical, and said it to the girl I was together with at the time. She told me to go fuck myself. That basically sums up my relationship with Drake.
I then begrudgingly listened to his debut album "Thank Me Later" when it came out, and thought I was being Punk'd. He was parodying himself and he had only been around for maybe a year. I guess you could have called it potential (like Hova did), but I wasn't buying into him. I was already ramping up to see him back on Degrassi for the Boilling Point 4-Hour season opener. As B-Rabbit said in 8 Mile, he was destined to figuratively "walk his white ass back across 8 mile"…with "8 Mile" being "the Canadian border" in this case.
For me, he sealed his fate as a one hit wonder when he said in his LeBron James propaganda/ song "Forever" that he was the "greatest ever." Alright buddy. You've released one crap album. Hold your horses. Only Kanye is allowed to get away with being that big of a d-bag because he can back it up. I've always hated cockiness. I've still never forgiven LeBron for saying in an interview that he had "forgotten how to miss." Drake was dead to me.
That three paragraph long intro was completely necessary in showing my initial bias going into this album. I was ready to hate it and just spend this article making Wheelchair Jimmy jokes, but then it caught me off guard and bowled me over. "Take Care" is a great album and shows that Drake is finally living up to that once allusive potential and hype surrounding him.
Most rap LPs go in one ear and out the other because it is a genre plagued by "white noise albums". Rappers come and go. They rap about the same things over and over. They're poorly produced and probably mixed on a PC with Windows 97. The rhymes are laughable. But this is where Drake breaks free. He basically made a concept album on how he is failing at coping with fame. He is in the limelight life, one that is filled with loneliness, empty relationships, and materialistic compensation. Blowing money on gold chains and gallons of Petrone doesn't even give him fleeting happiness, he does it because its just a thing to do. He doesn't know any other way.
Drake is miserable.
This time around, his actual rapping and flow is completely revamped. I once saw a comedian who summed up Drake's style much better than I ever could: "Drake basically says a stupid phrase, then stops….and shouts a groan worthy rhyming word. For instance, he might say 'In the club err day, they let me right on through. I got so much swag they pull the alarm…….code red: MOUNTAIN DEW'." This Drake is a thing of the past. Now he is faster, smoother, and raps about the specific things he is feeling, not just cliched action (having sex, being tough, and smoking weed.) That isn't to say that Drake doesn't rap about those things, but he adds that in for a purpose.
The album opens with "Over My Dead Body," a slick opener where Drake shows that he has changed. The song is meant to bring you into a world he has created that resides between the first and last track. He is depressed, but won't actually say it. He's been disillusioned by this life style, and all he wants is to find someone who loves him not for his status.
In "Shot for Me" and "Headlines", we start to realize that Drake is directly addressing a girl who he used to love back when he was in Toronto. He wants her back even though she destroyed him. He wants to go back to the time when he could go out and be himself without the paranoia that everyone he knows (especially women) was just using him for his money. He just wants to be loved, but since that isn't working out, he goes out, throws his money in the street, and bangs strippers, thus causing him to hate himself. On top of this, he raps about how everyone will hate his new, morose sound, but that he doesn't care. A far cry from "like a sprained ankle, boy I ain't nothing to play with," right? He's a few pegs above rock bottom.
As the album progresses, Drake begins to flesh out his emotional state more and more. In some weird way, it is exactly like a Taylor Swift album. This album is an honest look into his life, his journal, his feelings, and his pain. Some of the biggest highlights are "Take Care", "Make Me Proud," "Lord Knows", and "The Real Her". They feature Rihanna, Nikki Minaj, Rick Ross, and Lil Wayne with Andre 3000 respectively. All of these featured verses soar. Rihanna is always good at what she does, but Nikki has frequently fallen flat of late. On "Make Me Proud" she plays to her strengths and brings to mind her now legendary verse on Kanye's "Monster". The usually over theatrical Ricky Rosay (another "Monster" alumnus) takes it easy, and by playing it cool, he adds something beautiful to the album. Lil Wayne also relaxes from his usual flow and focuses on his lyrics, giving my favorite performance of his since he rapped, "you drop em cuz we pop em like Orville Redenbacher." The album is beautiful.
Well done, Drake. You've officially become "Drake: The Rapper" and are no longer "Drake: Who had a Degrassi episode devoted to how he couldn't get it up for his girlfriend because of his spinal injury." Buy Take Care. You'll be glad you did. Heck. You can THANK ME LATER!!!!!! Thank you! Goodnight!
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