For what is ostensibly a pop album, his hooks are often anything but catchy. His songwriting owes quite a bit to singer-songwriter The-Dream, who himself appears in "Shut It Down." But where The-Dream's rambling lyrics seem charming, Drake's feel unfinished. His is a hip-hop devoid of both fun and truth.Īs the genre's first full-time fusionist, Drake proves to be a serviceable R&B singer at best, fairly limited in range and compensating with the AutoTune treatment. Stripped-down self-seriousness isn't an experiment or a diversion for Drake it's the whole of his aesthetic. Kanye's record was a one-off, honesty-fueled break-up freak-out, not a well-crafted statement of intent. It's undoubtedly informed by Kanye's post-rap opus 808s & Heartbreak, except more polished and less compelling. The embodiment of that forced reality, Thank Me Later ricochets uncomfortably between half-baked rap and half-hearted R&B over a backdrop of hyper-sparse synth-hop. So it's not surprising that Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Kanye West, arguably the three most popular rappers today, all came out as early supporters of Drake. But even before that tape's release, Drake - whose uncle is famed Sly Stone bassist Larry Graham - was already signed to a management team connected to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella empire, which handles Lil Wayne and Kanye West. Last year, his So Far Gone mixtape was made available for free online and presented as the type of ground-up hustle on which hip-hop often prides itself. Just two years ago, Aubrey Drake Graham was best known for his role on the Canadian teen soap Degrassi: The Next Generation, so it's taken a magnificent sleight-of-hand to get him to this point. He may well be the first fully industry-manufactured rap star. Drake, the 23-year-old Toronto native whose retail debut (titled Thank Me Later) is set to thrust him into the upper echelon of hip-hop celebrity, experienced no such trial by fire.
Most of the genre's true crossovers - from MC Hammer to Jay-Z - built their empires from the ground up, spending years toiling in the underground, paying dues on local and indie labels or apprenticing under established acts. Until recently, instant stardom was not the norm in hip-hop. Poised at the brink of superstardom, 23-year-old rapper Drake just released his debut album.
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