As much as Drake knows how to rap and write good hooks, he knows his audience loves sage branding exercises, carefully curated nostalgia, expensive gestures, and power plays: the guest bars from Jay-Z, the Michael Jackson sample, the Beatles chop. This is true of both the way he positions himself to be adjacent to every massive trend and the reality that this is making his art feel safe.ĭrake’s regency dovetails with a larger moment in modern pop culture characterized by an endless wave of sequels and revivals for beloved intellectual properties, a torrent of historical documentaries and period pieces, and a focus on the messy brilliance of auteurs, where a unique vision of the present and a dusting of retro vibes are tickets to mass appeal. His albums survey developments in street rap across regions, R&B across decades, and Black art across continents. Drake is the man about town in every town. He’s a weathervane for what’s popular, always ingratiated with the right rappers, athletes, and models, always apprised of the best kicks, kits, jerseys, streetwear, athleisure pieces, and designer gear, of what teams to support, what shows to watch, and whose sounds to dabble in. His official singles rarely miss the top ten his albums routinely top the charts internationally his guest spots have the power to break new artists. In the event the subtlety of the message in Lover Boy’s intro “Champagne Poetry” eluded you, “You Only Live Twice” recapitulates later: “Not sure if you know, but I’m actually Michael Jackson / The man I see in the mirror is actually going platinum.” Drake is the moment, top two in any conversation about the biggest-selling artist of the era, and not often the runner-up. If you follow the lore, you know the Boy got a tattoo on his forearm a few years ago depicting himself waving back to the Fab Four, in commemoration of shattering a few chart records previously held by the Liverpool legends. The first sound heard on Certified Lover Boy, the sixth studio album by Canadian hip-hop heavyweight Drake, is a sliver of the 1965 Beatles song “Michelle” (as performed by Chicago vocal group the Singers Unlimited, as sampled by Virginia R&B star Masego in his 2017 track “Navajo”). On Certified, the Boy’s truest loves are family, wealth, and self.

Drake more life album credits