Drake performs in Toronto on Feb. 14, 2016.MARK BLINCH/The Canadian Press
“Things get kinky after 15 years of dominance,” Toronto’s Aubrey (Drake) Graham raps wearily on the soulful new single 8am in Charlotte. “That October sky is lookin’ ominous …”
The track is off his eighth and latest album, the sprawling For All the Dogs, released on Friday. The LP has been long-promised and highly anticipated. Now it is judgment day – the ominous October.
The song is another in his state-of-the-Drake time-stamp series (4pm in Calabasas, 5am in Toronto et cetera.), but do not set your watch to this guy. For All the Dogs’s release date was pushed back twice this summer.
“If you never loved anything I’ve ever done in the past, I promise you, this album will be for you,” Drake told a Seattle concert audience in August. “It’ll be worth the wait.”
Does that sound bold to you? It should not. Within the vainglorious boast-fest that is hip-hop, Drake’s promise comes off as earnest, chipper confidence. He’s earned it: The pop music instigator has surprised us repeatedly. Last year’s Honestly, Nevermind, for example, was a left turn toward club music that upset the hip-hop apple cart.
For All the Dogs is a darkly cinematic adventure in moody sensuality, melodic R&B, ornate autobiography, two minutes of late-night gospel and one gangster story. Drake raps and Auto-Tunes over heavy-hitting instrumentals produced by a fine roster of hired guns.
At least three and as many as 14 lyricists contribute to each of the 23 songs and interludes. Not all the wordplay works: “So many cheques owed, I feel Czechoslovakian.”
Featured artists include 21 Savage, J. Cole, SZA, Bad Bunny, Yeat, Lil Yachty and Chief Keef (whose title is believed to be self-awarded). An expected collaboration with Nicki Minaj did not happen. One surprise cameo was blatantly nepotistic: Drake’s son, Adonis, is credited for “additional vocals” on the outro to Daylight.
At one show during his current It’s All a Blur tour, which concludes with a pair of hometown shows this weekend at Scotiabank Arena, Drake asked that female audience members refrain from throwing bras onto the stage because his son was in attendance. Guarding his boy’s innocence is commendable. And yet Daylight begins with an audio clip from the gun-happy 1983 film Scarface and offers this chorus: “Shot him in daylight.”
No need to alert social services, but still.
The album itself starts with a swirl of synthesized glitter that samples Frank Ocean. On Virginia Beach, Drake pushes back on a lover’s grievances and suggests she is “drawing conclusions like you got a Parsons degree or somethin’.” Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a top art and design college in New York. It’s a good line – wonder who wrote it.
Amen, with Teezo Touchdown, follows with a tinkling saloon piano, an admission of sin, churchy declarations (prayin’, prayin’ again”) and a phone call to a Mercedes-Benz dealership.
Drake acquits himself well linguistically on Gently, a Dominican dance hall duet with Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny. Lead single Slime You Out is a drowsy but agreeable bit of R&B with singer-songwriter SZA.
The record’s biggest disappointment? First Person Shooter, a lacklustre showdown between Drake and rapper J. Cole. The latter calls the meeting a Super Bowl, but I’m still waiting for the thing to kick off. Drake raps that he uses a Grammy Award as a doorstop. He has won five and deserves many more, but not for this track.