Last Thursday, Drake pulled a Beyoncé, tweeting a link to a project entitled “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late.” It arrived with no singles, no marketing campaign and minimal immediate fanfare.
This isn’t to say the LP-cum-mixtape went under the radar — that’s been unthinkable for Drake for half a decade now — but it’s certainly a far cry from the Canadian artist’s past releases.
The difference goes beyond release style. Musically, Drake has moved past the realization he’s on top of the rap world. Instead, he reminds his contemporaries that he remains there and nothing will depose him.
Indeed, Drake displays noticeably heightened energy and assertiveness. After getting warmed up with the lackluster “Legend,” he raises his intensity for four consecutive tracks, rapping with a rarely seen anger over barebones 808-and-piano production.
The music is more dark and hazy than club-friendly, and Drake’s target audience is more his detractor than his ex-girlfriends. He even admits, “They think I’m soft, think I’m innocent,” on first-half highlight “No Tellin’,” a few lines before uncharacteristically firing, “You pick the casket, I put the nail through it.”
For much of the album, this change pays dividends. On “Star67,” he uses off-kilter motifs to document his rise to stardom in Toronto — to which he pays tribute throughout the release — over a syrupy downtempo beat. It’s left-field for Drake, but it works.
Meanwhile, over the bass-laden instrumental on “Used To,” he and a reinvigorated Lil Wayne deliver some of the hardest, most impassioned verses in mainstream hip-hop since Schoolboy Q’s work last year.
Still, discomfort is palpable at times, as Drake regrettably reverts to his old type (the sentimental R&B one, at least) on tracks like “Jungle” and “Wednesday Night Interlude” — both of which feature some uninspired crooning (and PARTYNEXTDOOR on the latter track). And when presented with battle-rap beats, as on “6 God,” his flow becomes unpalatably choppy.
Drake also doesn’t come close to reaching his lyrical potential. While the Toronto native has never been capable of the sheer poetry of Kendrick Lamar or Nas, he’s always crafted solid verses employing witty wordplay and storytelling.
Optimists would say he’s simply focused more on mood and atmosphere here. Yet given the myriad of unoriginal, inconsequential boasts, it’s more likely down to laziness — at least that’s how lines like “when you get to where I’m at, you gotta remind ‘em where the f*** you at” sound.
Unsurprisingly then, Drake is at his best when he does focus on the actual substance of his rhymes, as on the closer “6PM in New York,” a boom-bap epic on which he raps for nearly five uninterrupted minutes.
In moments like these, “If You’re Reading This” is thoroughly enjoyable. And while some would be further degraded for tweaking their style in the face of criticism, the majority of this project seems justified.
After all, with an invariably darkened mood, little radio appeal and no marketing, Drake will still outsell almost every hip-hop artist in 2015. Despite its occasional shortcomings, this project feels like a big middle finger to his competitors, and as a listener, one can’t help but like it. Drake is still here, and he’s here to stay.
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