Drake’s album releases have a certain ritual to them, which involves Drizzy getting rid of lost thoughts in the form of a mixtape or an EP. This almost always seems to involve Rick Ross. Last week he launched Scary hours 2, the second installment of his EP series that prevents the album. Although the general formula of the project is already familiar – Drake experimented admirably with some modern rap styles; Drake invites a rising young rapper to go crazy in a beat; Drake and Rick Ross talk about the good things in life – something about Scary Hours 2 it looks different. In recent months, rumors have surfaced on social media about whether or not Drake’s next album will be postponed. Certified Lover, will be your last. With his latest offering, it’s hard not to have the feeling that we’re approaching the end of the Drake show series.
The EP begins with the energetic, if somewhat enigmatic, “What’s Next”. Produced by Maneesh & Supah Mario, the track sounds like a Whole Lotta Red B-side and finds Drizzy doing useful work following the shape of hip-hop in the Pi’erre Bourne era. We received Drake’s characteristic elastic flow punctuated by humble boastings like “on Valentine’s Day I had sex”. The entire song serves as a reminder of why it has been a trusted success factory for over a decade. “I’m in the hot one-hundo, Numero Uno / This one doesn’t come with a package,” Drake says – a blow to many artists’ less-than-direct efforts to reach the top of the charts. In the era of streaming, which can be defined by records made by Drizzy himself, it is a moving flex. But despite showing us ostensibly that it can adapt to the sound sensitivity of any generation, you have the feeling that bragging about success is getting tiring, even for Drake.
For most of his career, Drake was accused of stealing younger artists in search of relevance, and yet in Lil Baby’s “Want and Needs” you would be pressured to make such a statement. Drake uses the band to show a new flow that manages to meander, hypnotically, with the beat. It is no different from his many forays into UK training, where the line between rap and conversation is blurred and has a mixed effect. In any case, “Wants and Needs” is clearly a Lil Baby track. It is one of his most exciting and agile verses to date and marks a radical change to Drake’s infamous co-sign. It is getting harder to believe Drake’s narrative as a vulture when he creates a perfect alley for an obvious heir to his throne.
Or maybe it’s just because Rick Ross’s “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” looks like the last season of The Sopranos. Drake is known for becoming poetic about his own biography, but on this track, you get the feeling of two hardened mafia bosses who know their time is coming, whether from a hungry new generation that is increasingly difficult to predict, or the pressures of adulthood. Drake even sings about parent-teacher meetings with his son. The song becomes a sample of Quadron’s song “Pressure” and has the same vibe of listening to Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama sitting and talking about their respective careers. At one point, Drake becomes self-reflective, rapping: “Damn, there are not many parallels left in our lives.” It is a moment that recognizes its appeal to audiences who have seen their own stories in the rapper’s often vulnerable tracks. For what seems like a generation, Drake made music for what seemed to be everyone and nobody. Despite being possibly one of the most successful artists in the world, he managed to rap as if he were against the world, and his gift was to make it look like it was true. On Scary hours 2, there is less urgency and more comfort. “I have had so much time that I don’t even celebrate,” he sings.
This sounds like someone who is preparing to retire!
Maybe it would be a little tricky even for Drake if, fresh out of a knee injury, he delivered a record that defined his career in a cool package on which we can watch a Netflix documentary in 20 years. Then again, strange things happened.