So are “Lord Knows” and “HYFR,” the two most out-of-place, sonically and tonally, tracks on the album. “The Ride,” the album’s closing number for all intents and purposes, is one of the few tracks without an added touch from 40. The Weeknd’s songs lifted by Drake were revealed to be, “Crew Love,” “Shot for Me,” and “The Ride,” which Abel says were all lifted at different stages of completion. I will always be thankful - if it wasn’t for the light he shined on me, who knows where I’d be.” “I was like, ‘Dude, take anything.'” He later confirmed the dealings to Rolling Stone last year, saying “I gave up almost half of my album. “I was hungry,” he revealed in a 2013 interview with Complex. Their influence provides the tone for most of the album, with 40 credited as a producer in 13 of the album’s 18 tracks, and The Weeknd contributing “almost half of (his) album” to Drake during Take Care‘s inception. Part of the consistency of Take Care is owed to The Weeknd and Drake’s go-to producer/engineer Noah “40” Shebib. It’s a slog, but it’s consistent one and never too dour.
Take Care is a solemn album, even in its celebratory moments, like the uptempo and emphatic “HYFR” with Lil Wayne, where he’s busy learning “working with the negatives could make for better pictures.” Ultimately he succeeds, giving songs to everybody separately, but rarely giving them to everybody together. They’re all focused efforts, either thematically, sonically or in most cases, both.ĭrake, with his dual identities and sing/rap ying-yang - and multiple chefs in the kitchen, probably - is rarely able to concentrate his attention in such a way, and as such is often left with albums spanning different sounds, tones and even genres in an effort to please multiple crowds. This is where Take Care comes close, as it’s basically the tales a forlorn star dealing with the pressures of celebrity and hollow relationships. Illmatic is the story of one project stoop, The Blueprint is an hour-long confessional/retrospective, the same for Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.
He’s almost too successful for the requisite risks to craft a classic, and as a pop star he has to touch so many bases on each release that it hardly allows for the focus that nearly all classic rap albums possess. In some respects, Drake’s greatest trait may be his most glaring flaw. The all have them, and the truly upper-echelon rappers have multiple classics, which makes the fact that Drake has become so revered without an undeniably transcendent, genre and era-defining album in the vein of Jay Z’s Blueprint, Nas’ Illmatic, and Kanye West’s College Dropout maybe his most puzzling and impressive accomplishment. For many it’s his lone classic, the album of such prestige and universal acclaim that every legendary rapper must possess to truly solidify his status amongst the elite. Rarely has a run lasted as long without public opinion waning on an artist, and despite some vocal detractors, now, nearly eight years since his breakthrough mixtape So Far Gone, the Canadian MC is bigger than he’s ever been.ĭespite his current, commercial peak, it’s a near consensus that Aubrey Graham was at his artistic peak on his second album Take Care, which celebrates its fifth annviersary tomorrow.
His reign on the top is as long as any we’ve ever seen - including Jay Z, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar - and anybody else. “Well, Drake doesn’t have a classic album.”įor many, that’s the beginning of the path of divergence on Drake, the most famous and most controversial of all of rap’s figures in this post-blog era. Get in to any debate about Drake for long enough and you’re bound to have the same exchange everybody else has had.
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