JM: It feels a little bit like this is Drake’s Macbeth album. This is what happens when someone spends their life wanting power and trying to get there and not being qualified to do so or having a birthright to do so finally finds themself in the position of being the biggest star in the world and needing to live up to that. And I think this will potentially open cans of worms for other artists, it’s like the guy who shouldn’t be in charge is.

CR: He’s the Thane of Toronto?

TL: It’s all gone Breaking Bad.

JT: The Breaking Bad reference is pretty astute, we’ve seen his rise from famous to more famous – you know, started from the middle – and the façade has become more and more his persona, to the point where he’s actually living this disgusting, shiny, diamond-encrusted dream and he doesn’t know what to with it.

CK: I think there’s a self-awareness to it, though. We were talking earlier about him putting himself in the lineage of other rappers, and of hip-hop – does have any opinion on the ‘Mo Money, Mo Problems’ verse [which Drake appropriates on ‘Worst Behaviour’]?

TL: It’s probably most explicit on the Mase verse, but it feels like he’s got the hip-hop canon in the back of his mind throughout the album. Even in the album’s sequencing, it’s like he’s desperately trying to make a classic – it starts off seeming immaculately sequenced but then it just sinks under its own weight. He makes the Martin Scorsese comparison early on, which is actually quite apt in terms of what 40 does, but for an album that’s trying to be cinematic, and openly trying to be something you’ll remember a decade from now, it really does finish with a whimper. Not just the Jay Z verse, the whole thing kind of tails off.

CR: Content-wise, it’s pretty thin. We’ve said his flow’s improved but become less interesting, and he’s struggling for things to say – he can’t just talk about nothing and make it sound interesting, he’s not got that kind of lyrical ability. It’s too long, and it disappears without you even feeling like he’s said what he’s come to say. You’re not sure what it’s even about, in the way that you could say what Take Care was about.

TL: It’s also not that long – it just feels really long. That’s probably the most damning thing you could ever say about an album.

JT: It feels longer than Take Care, but it isn’t. The tracks feel more laboured as it goes on, which tends to make you want to go back to the beginning of the album rather than play the whole thing through, which is a really bad look for an album that purports to be very narrative-driven.

CK: Ending with ‘Pound Cake’ just leaves such a bad taste in your mouth, and then tacking on ‘Paris Morton Music 2’ at the end… they start to feel like bonus tracks that don’t need to be there.

CR: I think he’s chosen that as the closer because… you know, constantly having tracks that turn into other tracks, it’s this big cinematic idea – The Weeknd did it, Kendrick does it – but I don’t feel that he’s saying anything that ties one track to the next that’s particularly interesting.

CK: There’s that impressionist thing to it where from afar it has that tone, and that cinematic quality, but it doesn’t have the detail to back them up.

TL: Kendrick’s an interesting comparison that we’ve not talked about, because the way Drake approaches this album is a lot like Kendrick approached Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City. There’s a lot of that album which, on paper, could be a slog, but he’s interesting enough and fills the tracks with enough twists and enough detail to keep you listening.

JT: The difference with Kendrick’s record is that he had something very specific to say. He approached that album with a definite concept and a narrative, and throughout you find yourself listening to the lyrics because you’re interested in what he has to say. Whether or not what he was saying was true or not, that’s for a different conversation, but they were interesting stories and they were interestingly padded out. Whatever Drake’s narrative is here, he feels like he’s manipulated it for his own means, and it’s not interesting. It’s not gripping. It’s not interesting for anyone who isn’t there with him, that’s the problem.

CR: Compared to Kendrick, I mean I can’t relate to anything on Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City, it’s set in Compton, but I feel like I can relate to him, and the way he reacts to things, and I feel like I can get into his mind-space. With Drake, despite the fact that he’s from outside that traditional hip-hop background, I can’t relate to anything he’s saying.

TL: It’s telling that with the Kendrick album, he can start it with what’s on paper quite an down-beat track, with no hook, followed by a two minute skit before ‘Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe’ and you’re still listening. Drake starts this album with ‘Tuscan Leather’, which is a great track, but it sets a tone and a pace that he can’t keep up.

JT: I disagree with that, because I don’t think that’s the best track on the album. Drake makes a big deal about ‘Tuscan Leather’ being an amazing intro, and it is, but…

CR: He even acknowledges it during the song, you’re only two minutes into the album and he references that fact that you’re thinking ‘wow, long intro’. It’s like Drake, stop thinking about what other people are going to think about you all of the time!

JT: Isn’t that the essence of this album? His perception of other people’s perception of him. It comes back to the catalogue thing, all his characters are mannequins and he wants everything to be absolutely perfect. He wants you to walk through his rap Ikea and see everything as this motionless, lifeless void.

TL: In that sense is there more of a comparison to be made between this album and Magna Carta than there is Yeezus? He’s less obnoxious with it than Jay, but in the same way that Magna Carta is this horrific roll-call of reference points, from Picasso to Oceans Eleven, ‘Strange Fruit’ to Tom Ford, and it’s all given the same level of gravity, Drake wheels out Will Smith and Wu-Tang, this ‘90s canon that he’s now decided he’s in debt to. They might as well be Tuscan leather couches too.

CR: “Donate a million to some children, that’s just how I’m feeling”. Just any old children, Drake?

CK: There’s no detail, there’s nothing.

JT: That feels as false a statement as anything else on the album. But that’s what I love about Drake – this is an album that claims to be indebted to ‘90s rap that could never have been made in the ‘90s, when rap was 100% concerned with authenticity – you had to come from the right place, you had to know the right people, have the right background, and whether you made it up or not, it was harder to check up on. Authenticity was the key to success, whereas Drake’s inauthenticity is his own key to success, yet he’s referencing an era that he either doesn’t know about it… or at least, he can’t hold up against. And he addresses this, he’s said ‘this isn’t a hip-hop album, I don’t make real rap records’ or whatever. But here he’s made what he thinks can be construed as his most rap album yet, yet it’s also his most removed from what rap used to be. His hokey ‘90s references are even hokier when you have that in mind.

TL: There’s a lot to criticise, but it’s still half a good record.

JT: And it’s better than a hell of a lot of rap records this year. Maybe it’s not on the same level as Yeezus, which was completely unexpected where as this was entirely expected – this sounds like a Drake album, whereas Yeezus didn’t sound like a Kanye record, or much else at that. Maybe Death Grips, but that’s a conversation for another day. I think Drake is way more predictable than he would like to be seen as being.

TL: Again throughout Yeezus, despite all his obvious faults, I find myself rooting for Kanye. You get these American Psycho comparisons, but there’s no way that Kanye West could be a psychopath, even if he’d like to think he could. He can’t hold stuff back; he’s not got enough of a filter to be calculated, and that’s why I think Yeezus works. When you read about how he wrote the lyrics for the record, didn’t he do six tracks over a weekend? And some of the lines aren’t even by him, he just had this revolving cast of people throwing lyrics and suggestions into the mix.

JT: Yeah, King Louie wrote some of them.

TL: Right, this whole lyrical think tank which features fucking King Louie! But it works, they’re raw ideas that read like unfiltered thoughts, and they sound great. Drake has clearly overthought so much of this album, but it falls down in some really obvious, universal ways.

CR: I will not defend the Kanye record one inch, I think it’s ghastly, but at least it’s the sound of a guy who is ridiculously rich and ridiculously successful, and can do what the fuck he wants – so he does what the fuck he wants. Drake could do something equally weird, but he doesn’t.

JT: Drake wouldn’t do a record like Yeezus, because he always feels like he’s up against this cast of detractors. Whereas Kanye had the backpackers on his side, then he proved himself in pop – he’s got nothing to prove. He always has people talking shit about him, but they’re talking shit about his personality rather than his canon.

TL: He’s got that great combination of having nothing left to prove but also having burnt a shitload of bridges, so he just doesn’t care.

JT: Exactly, and Drake really cares – that’s the one thing that comes across here more than anything. He cares about what people think of him, and what people think about his music, and how it’s going to be remembered in the future. Kanye’s like ‘I made this in two weeks, this is punk, fuck it. If you like it you like it, if you don’t you don’t, radio’s not gonna play it – fuck you.’ Drake’s more like ‘well, radio’s not gonna play this… but they are, and sort of fuck you but I’d actually really like everyone to like this and I’d really like them to call it the greatest album ever.’

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