#like my guy is such a fucking hater seeing him be nice is actually astonishing buddie def going canon

[pigeonxp]

love how oliver stark is being nice on instagram and everyone is like "oh hes not being a giant bitch buddies def going canon" 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[evilradmedieval]

Drake - “More Life” Review

For some reason, it seems like it’s been a hot minute since we’ve last heard from rap superstar and pop culture icon Drake. Either that, or Views was the most underwhelming and unmemorable project he’s dropped to date, giving most fans of IYRTITL a heaping mess of disappointment. Opting for whitewashed dancehall, cheesy one-liners about Channing Tatum and a very stupid story about eating at The Cheesecake Factory, I was devastated. But then again, it’s Drizzy Drake, and he was bound to come out with more material in the near future. 

With the release of singles such as “Fake Love” and “Sneakin’”, I was re-intrigued, if you will. “Fake Love” had the same intent as “Hotline Bling”, a catchy, accessible rap-sung track that may have already made you sick of hearing it all the time on the radio. The latter track, however, was one of my favorites, and despite my indifference towards 21 Savage and his slightly monotone and boring flow, his verse was actually had some punch to it. Drake borrows heavily from his feature, but matches the intensity well. Unfortunately, “Sneakin’” doesn’t make the final tracklisting for this “playlist”.

“Free Smoke” starts off with some smart braggadocio and a hilarious line about drunk texting J-Lo. Instrumentally, the song is sparse, complete with heavy bass and minimalistic high hats in a trap-flavored banger. It doesn’t go as hard as I’d like, but is a still solid introduction to the album. There’s a lot of cheesy patois commentary in the background as the song then transitions into another banger in “No Long Talk”, where he shows a lot of aggression and flows pretty well over this track with more smart braggadocio and some clever lines here and there, however I’m still on the fence with the Giggs feature. Not a fan of how Drake has been really trying to push for two things: his obsession with dancehall and his obsession with UK grime. I’m sure it’ll grow on me though, despite me not being a fan of him, Giggs does flow pretty nicely over the beat and makes for good variety early in the tracklisting.

We have our “Hold On We’re Going Home”/ “Find Your Love” of the album with “Passionfruit”. A synthpop-tinged simp song, Drake comes through with his typical single octave-hitting vocals that rides atop a lush, tropical-flavored instrumental. Though not as emotional as the latter spiritual predecessors, it still makes for a good head-bopper. I just did not think the demo-esque interlude in the beginning was necessary at all.

“Jorja Interlude” is interesting in the sense that Drake samples his own song “Doing It Wrong” with the Stevie Wonder harmonicas embedded towards the latter half of the instrumental. We get a decent feature from up-and-coming UK singer Jorja Smith. Drake’s verse on the track is decent, but I loved the piano sample and mixing of Jorja’s voice interpolating throughout the beat, giving the track a very atmospheric and moody vibe to it. The song then transitions into a vocal sample of Drake throwing shade at Meek Mill (again) and then jumps into… more fucking uninspired dancehall.

The next couple of tracks are absolute duds, however. All three of them feature the exact same shit that I loathed about Views. The song has a decent vocal feature, but the repetitive thumping beat and uninspired dancehall elements sound so awkward as a Drake song. It honestly feels so out of place. The next couple of songs I won’t even name because of how gaudy and uninspired they are. You would thing he had his dancehall fix after Views, right?

You guys already know my love for Sampha and his angelic voice on “4422″. As a matter of fact, his feature was so good, Drake didn’t even want to be on the same track as him so he didn’t get shown out on his own song. Although the song doesn’t seem to have much to offer lyrically, Sampha wrote and performed the song in the means of metaphorically talking about a deteriorating relationship, in which the “4422″ alludes to the IRS tax form when letting go property while under subject to state tax lien. 

“Gyalchester” is another banger that seems to blends into the tracklisting for not being as quotable or having any noteworthy features. Again, we see a minimalistic, skeletal trap-flavored instrumental with Drake giving us more braggadocio. However, this song is overshadowed by the subsequent track in “Skepta’s Interlude”, a grime banger with Skepta going absolutely insane. This track honestly feels like a track off his debut album Konnichiwa. He gives a great performance, and again we find this track absolutely Drake-less. Maybe whenever Drake nabs a guest feature, he doesn’t join in on the fun if he feels like he’ll get bodied on his own track.

“Portland” was king of funny when I first heard the flute sample interpolating throughout the instrumental, but it just starts getting annoying as the song progresses. On this track, Drake enlists the help of Quavo, who gives a fantastic feature and catchy hook full of personality and steals the show. The Travi$ Scott feature was decent, but had nothing to noteworthy to report. Overall the track was slightly underwhelming, and seeing the two features thought the song would be way better.

The next track is too soft for what I expected. You have two of the most energetic rappers in the game in 2 Chainz and Young Thug, yet here we find both rappers giving very lowkey deliveries that don’t really fit well with their personalities and subject matter. I honestly felt like this was the softest delivery I’ve ever heard Young Thug perform of all time. If you’re gonna talk about “Sacrifices”, listen to the Big Sean and Migos version instead. 

The tempo starts to slow down heavily after “Sacrifices” with “Nothing Into Something”, a demo-ish type track that sounds like a mindless interlude more than anything that was a leftover from the days of NTWS. However, I really enjoyed the follow-up track in “Teenage Fever”, which brings me back to the emotionally torturous days of NWTS. The vocal sample is simply astonishing and fits perfectly. The fact that he has J-Lo sampled in the hook was on the same level of me hearing Ginuwine sampled on “Legend”. Downtempo and trap-flavored, this is the epitome of Drake making simp tracks the right way.

We then quickly change the mood from #simplife to mindless bangers. “KMT” is another trap-flavored heavy-hitter that samples both Skepta and Sonic the Hedgehog, strangely enough. I don’t get why Giggs was brought on for another features, as I wasn’t completely enamored with his first one on the second track of the album. However, the track then transitions into a more introspective track with “Lose You”, where Drake actually delivers a lot of deeper lyrics with some great quotables. The track is has these flowing synths and a lovely piano sample as well, giving Drake room to really paint his lyrical story for a good five minutes. Definitely one of the better lyrical tracks on the album.

We see Drake again on his shit-talking tip with “Can’t Have Everything”, which actually has some great lyrical roasts to all his doubters and haters. Also one of my favorites, as the hook is equally catchy. Towards the tail-end of the track, we get a telephone interlude of Drake’s mother addressing his change in tone and negativity in some of his music, which is definitely apparent. 

Drake and Kanye West together on a track sounds like a good idea, but this “Glow” song sounds god awful. Drake tries as hard as he can to hit the highest notes he could, but obviously does this with the assistance of poorly applied Autotune. Kanye awkwardly interpolates “Started From the Bottom” lyrics and also doesn’t give the best of a vocal performance as well. Of course, as it’s produced by Kanye, he throws in a random sample of Earth Wind & Fire’s ‘Devotion” at the end of the track.

Another Drake album, another PARTYNEXTDOOR feature, which can be hit or miss. Here on “Since Way Back”, PND gives a worthy contribution without ruining the song with some sus lyrics per usual on his lackluster P3 album. The song instrumentally sounds fantastic. Moody, atmospheric and varied, both Drake and PARTY sound great here. 

Drake and Young Thug, however, do not mix well for some reason. Thugger gave an underwhelming performance on “Sacrifices” and here he just sounds completely out of place. “Ice Melts” isn’t a bad song, and Drake does sound good here vocally and lyrically. But all that I’m taking away from the track regarding Young Thug is: “WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA”. 

On a lighter note, we get a fantastic closer track. Sampling R. Kelly with another trap-flavored banger with rattling high hats and booming bass, this joint is more introspective topically. Here, Drake sounds more confident as ever, while at the same time self-aware and reflective. It was a shame we didn’t get this Drake more on some songs, but then again it’s a Drake album.

Album, playlist, mixtape, whatever this thing is, More Life is not perfect. At all. However, I would not say that it’s a piece of shit that should be left out in the cold. We have some quality tracks, some that bring back some emotions and moments from previous Drake albums. We have a handful of quality trap-flavored bangers, half of them mindless and meandering while some loaded with clever bars and good features. Speaking of features, this thing was loaded with them, however the utilization of most of them were either underwhelming or just completely out of place. Quavo, Sampha, Skepta and PARTNEXTDOOR contributed fantastically. However, I was disappointed heavily with the Kanye, Thugger and Travi$ Scott features. We also had the unfortunate inclusion of shitty dancehall trash that we need to just end. Overall, the album isn’t my favorite project by hip-hop mogul Drizzy Drake, but it is definitely something to hold fans over until the next project, hence the denomination of More Life being called a “playlist”. Either way, it’s a definite improvement over Views, yet has me still feeling ultimately left wanting more despite its loaded 20+ song tracklisting.

RATING: 5/10