Drake just released not only his expected ninth album, Iceman, but another two albums, Maid of Honour and Habibti. 43 songs. Two-and-a-half hours of music. And a trying listen for anyone with a soul.
Drake is the one of the world’s most successful male pop stars. This is troubling, but it makes sense. He’s admired, in our capitalism-as-religion age, as much for his social media reach and business acumen as his art. “I’m not a people-pleaser, bro’, I’m a CEO,” he burbles over the horizontal chillage of “White Bone”. That’s about right. He’s a figurehead for the romance-free, the tawdrily acquisitive and the sensually mundane.
“But it’s SEXY!”. Not really. Ever since Val Doonican-ing around in his crap jumper in the video for Rihanna’s “Work”, a decade ago, Drake is surely akin to some luxury brand rich dude, lurking in high end table service joints, syruping ladies like a bald-faced hornet. Much of his music is redolent of R&B slow jam clubs where there’s never any peace for women as blokes with erections keep grinding on them. Drake’s “sexy” is that kind of sexy.
If we step outside the strangely insular social media macro-microcosm it represents, Iceman and its sister albums aren’t effective. They won’t stand strong in the broader sweep of cultural history. Where it’s easy to imagine someone in 10 or 20 years’ time enjoying, say, Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” as a song, unconnected to its maker’s biography, this isn’t the case with Drake’s recent output. These albums are beige leisurewear for the ears.
On Iceman, the backing tracks are gloopy slow-mo’ over which Drake mainly chats about how he’s “flippin’ dough” and how people don’t appreciate his magnificence. Those who enjoy digging around for tiresome Easter Eggs about his life may enjoy themselves. It’s wordy, with multiple enigmatic allusions, especially on “Janice STFU”. Ooooh, who’s he chatting about!?! Who cares.
Those interested in anything that goes beyond the one-dimensional will struggle as the album passes the hour mark. On “Make Them Pay” he seems to want to be free of the endless cycle of wealth culture; “I rack up a tab in Chanel ‘cause I do buy everything like I’m Middle Eastern but I realise it’s gotta get a little deeper”. Then he gives a shout-out to the multi-billion dollar Nike corporation. He’ll never be free.
The Maid of Honour album, with guests including Central Cee and Popcaan, is musically more fun. Tracks such as “Cheetah Print” and “BBW” have post-trap heft. There are serious booty-shaking bass-throbbers throughout. Unfortunately, the whole thing drips with sweaty tumescent male lust. With a sliver of tongue-in-cheek wit it could have been an electro party. But there’s no cheeky wink here, it’s just a sleaze parade where women might as well be cars, and “love” equals some bloke getting his end away. By the time we come to a “princess, laying in the bathroom, she got too lit,” on rock-out closer “Princess”, one simply worries for her fate.
The final album, Habibti, is even more sexy. It’s the bedroom album. Yum. So the music is laidback and woozy. By this point, anyone who finds Autotune annoying will have been sectioned. But Drake knows lots of “girls who wanna party”. So, then, let's have more drab odes to them. Or, mainly, to his prowess, his one-note desires. I wonder if he’s happy? He’s reputedly worth around $400 million but he sounds trapped in a tedious cycle of free market banality.
In terms of hip hop, one can imagine future generations looking back to the outlandish imaginings of Lil Yachty and Chance the Rapper, the twisting street edginess of Ghetts or Saigon, and, of course, the creative peaks of superstars such as Kanye West (before the fall) and Outkast. But, aside from his earliest work, not Drake. He came from somewhere tangible and real, but where he’s ended up is entirely vapid.
Below: Watch the video for "Make Them Know" by Drake
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