gnarlynasty

1mo

Yep, when you need to dominate as many avenues as he does, you need as many perspectives as possible. You can tell he's the writer on more personal tunes, but I think his club/radio are more collaborative efforts

2words

1mo

I hate when yall do this too. When he does this, the literal point is how the lines stack up on top of each other. There’s a momentum that develops line to line. I don’t get why yall don’t like it

TheBigBoss

1mo

@ me next time p****

YungDrew

1mo

Once you start listening out for the “like” the raps go from being clever to sounding lazy.

Him also rhyming the same word line after line after line becomes a chore to listen to after a while.

I don’t know why he couldn’t pack Iceman with 18 songs with structures like What Did I Miss, Plot Twist and National Treasures.

Knx

1mo

Ok, @TheBigBoss ,
Nobody cares about Internet forums. Especially me. The person on a burner account doing damage control

Valentine

1mo

facts, he’s become so good at only putting developed structure on like 3-4 songs per project, genuinely don’t understand

but I guess that just reveals how often inspiration is not reaching him to do that across an entire project

TheBigBoss

1mo

Here's why it seems that way.

Part of what makes Drake...well Drake is that he is versatile and always experimenting with new sounds.

He raps. He makes RnB. He makes pop. He makes club music for the hoes. Now he makes house music. And so on.

Prior to this triple release, Drake was always pigeonholed into trying to force all of those sounds into the same project to appease all of his listening demographics. IDGAF into 7969 is pretty jarring for example. If you like rap Drake, you'd hear 8AM in Charlotte and go "why can't he make a tape full of this?". However, the hoes would hear 8AM, skip a few tracks to Rich Baby Daddy, and say "why can't he make a tape full of THIS?"

He's arguably too versatile for his own good. Traditional rappers like Pusha, K dot, WSG only have one primary listening demographic. They can put out tapes full of bars because they don't have to try to make a song for the bros, a song for the hoes, a pop song for the families all on the same project.

Coincidentally, when did the "bloat/filler" accusations start? Views. And Views was the first time he really tried to do this "appease everyone" type of album. Before that, his tapes were pretty much mostly rap, traditional R&B, with a pop track or two like Best I Ever Had or Hold On We're Going Home sprinkled in.

This is why the three albums at once was genius IMO, and this is why Iceman is getting so much praise as one of his most cohesive albums in a hot minute. Because its a tape thats almost entirely rap or melodic rap, because he threw all of the crooning R&B, house music, pop songs, and club songs on the other two albums

2words

1mo

Yall will always find something

Drake gives a focused full rap album with age appropriate content like yall supposedly wanted but now it’s the similes and the beat switches that’s the problem. Riiiiight

insertcoolnamehere

1mo

Is it ok to critique the album in anyway mr 2words?

2words

1mo

I think people who hate similes and wordplay are ruining rap discourse.

Imagine this thread about Carter 3 “Wayne spamming similes, I’m rare like Mr clean with hair? Really? cringe”

fun guy

1mo

I see the Kbots are at it again... I can tell you had to google what a simile is lmao bros trying to sound smart by using fancy terms but no ones falling for it again.

Valentine

1mo

you’re missing the point. it’s got nothing to do with his variety, you can have variety and still sound inspired and really dig deeper into developing the structure of the songs (it’s why niggas glaze HNVM despite the terrible singing because he had EDM niggas helping him structure actual songs with thematic purpose like 40 used to for an entire project)

due to his need to have variety, he can’t have a Race My Mind, Overdrive, Major Distribution and Somebody Loves Me on the same project because the inspiration to find all those songs in one project is a longer process and he not tryna go through that process so he can keep dropping

soapmanwun

1mo

now that Drake is back and the "Dot Era" is over, surely everyone else in rap will do good numbers now right...right?

TheBigBoss

1mo

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying it isn't fair to criticize. Albums sound much better when they are cohesive, I am not denying that, but I am not sure that it is not developing the songs/song structure that has been lacking.

The reason HNVM is praised as a cult classic is because it is cohesive. The entire album flows for the most part other than Jimmy Cooks and maybe Sticky. You gotta remember the rap heads made fun of HNVM relentlessly because it isn't bars. In their eyes, if a rapper wants to be seen as legitimate, he has to bar out on every single album, every single track. He can't be crooning about Lilah Pi or singing about how Jorja Smith broke his heart

In my opinion, the one flack on Drake since Views is like I said, the lack of cohesion on his albums. But even at that, on that stretch from Views through $$$4U, he had an excellent output of individual songs and many classic songs such as Tried Our Best, Jaded, 8 Am In Charlotte, In My Feelings, Time Flies, Race My Mind, Pipe Down, From Florida With Love.

The problem is, is that those A+ individual songs were not grouped together in a cohesive fashion that flowed well.

And honestly I'm not sure I can blame Drake too much. If he did what I'm saying and dropped projects like

1.) Diplomatic Immunity
2.) Lemon Pepper Freestyle
3.) 7 AM on Bridle Path
4.) 8AM In Charlotte
5.) Red Button
6.) Stories About My Brother
7.) Cant Have Everything
8.) Do Not Disturb
9.) Survival
10.) Nonstop
11.) From Florida With Love
12.) Deep Pockets
13.) 4PM in Calabasas

and

1.) Feel No Ways
2.) Childs Play
3.) Redemption
4.) Passionfruit
5.) Jungle
6.) Get It Together
7.) Liability
8.) Hours In Silence
9.) Tried Our Best
10.) Drew a Picasso
11.) In My Feelings
12.) Nice For What
13.) Slime You Out
14.) Laugh Now Cry Later
15.) God's Plan

Would they have probably been more critically acclaimed? I think so for sure. They all flow really well.

But the sales probably would have taken a hit because the people who love the rap focused album 1 are not really messing with album 2, and the people who love the pop and r&b focused album 2 are likely not tuning in for album 1

GONE

1mo

Drake’s “decline” in terms of bars is greatly exaggerated if you actually look at the bars from before vs now. That’s probably something else ppl don’t like being conflated as well, not a lot of strong feelings there from me. He still says a lot of s*** where I’m like “okay Drizzy oo kill em”

My only thing is the basslines/chord progressions and flows and hooks - I don’t enjoy them as much. And not to speak for other people but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the biggest thing for people who talk about a decline, but they just can’t articulate it so they grab at something easier to point out like his “rapping getting worse”

I wouldn’t even say his voice has gotten worse. It’s different but it still works

GONE

1mo

Drake’s “decline” in terms of bars is greatly exaggerated if you actually look at the bars from before vs now. That’s probably something else ppl don’t like being conflated as well, not a lot of strong feelings there from me. He still says a lot of s*** where I’m like “okay Drizzy oo kill em”

My only thing is the basslines/chord progressions and flows and hooks - I don’t enjoy them as much. And not to speak for other people but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the biggest thing for people who talk about a decline, but they just can’t articulate it so they grab at something easier to point out like his “rapping getting worse”

I wouldn’t even say his voice has gotten worse. It’s different but it still works

TheBigBoss

1mo

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying it isn't fair to criticize. Albums sound much better when they are cohesive, I am not denying that, but I am not sure that it is not developing the songs/song structure that has been lacking.

The reason HNVM is praised as a cult classic is because it is cohesive. The entire album flows for the most part other than Jimmy Cooks and maybe Sticky. You gotta remember the rap heads made fun of HNVM relentlessly because it isn't bars. In their eyes, if a rapper wants to be seen as legitimate, he has to bar out on every single album, every single track. He can't be crooning about Lilah Pi or singing about how Jorja Smith broke his heart

In my opinion, the one flack on Drake since Views is like I said, the lack of cohesion on his albums. But even at that, on that stretch from Views through $$$4U, he had an excellent output of individual songs and many classic songs such as Tried Our Best, Jaded, 8 Am In Charlotte, In My Feelings, Time Flies, Race My Mind, Pipe Down, From Florida With Love.

The problem is, is that those A+ individual songs were not grouped together in a cohesive fashion that flowed well.

And honestly I'm not sure I can blame Drake too much. If he did what I'm saying and dropped projects like

1.) Diplomatic Immunity
2.) Lemon Pepper Freestyle
3.) 7 AM on Bridle Path
4.) 8AM In Charlotte
5.) Red Button
6.) Stories About My Brother
7.) Cant Have Everything
8.) Do Not Disturb
9.) Survival
10.) Nonstop
11.) From Florida With Love
12.) Deep Pockets
13.) 4PM in Calabasas

and

1.) Feel No Ways
2.) Childs Play
3.) Redemption
4.) Passionfruit
5.) Jungle
6.) Get It Together
7.) Liability
8.) Hours In Silence
9.) Tried Our Best
10.) Drew a Picasso
11.) In My Feelings
12.) Nice For What
13.) Slime You Out
14.) Laugh Now Cry Later
15.) God's Plan

Would they have probably been more critically acclaimed? I think so for sure. They all flow really well.

But the sales probably would have taken a hit because the people who love the rap focused album 1 are not really messing with album 2, and the people who love the pop and r&b focused album 2 are likely not tuning in for album 1

ryuH

1mo

Also Iceman raps clear GNX raps fight me

GONE

1mo

Drake’s “decline” in terms of bars is greatly exaggerated if you actually look at the bars from before vs now. That’s probably something else ppl don’t like being conflated as well, not a lot of strong feelings there from me. He still says a lot of s*** where I’m like “okay Drizzy oo kill em”

My only thing is the basslines/chord progressions and flows and hooks - I don’t enjoy them as much. And not to speak for other people but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the biggest thing for people who talk about a decline, but they just can’t articulate it so they grab at something easier to point out like his “rapping getting worse”

I wouldn’t even say his voice has gotten worse. It’s different but it still works

Takotchi

1mo

I just think his delivery was better back in the day
It was more emphatic and had a charm to the bravado
now it's just more..somber, disheartened most of the time, monotone even