Written by John Dixon

Photography by Courtne Smith and Oliver

If there was one thing we could learn from the industry, it’s that success is a bitch. A big ass, overweight bitch that will eat you out of the house and home that she built you. We see artists blow up like party favors and disappear like point guards at Memphis on a regular basis. It’s no longer surprising for a rapper bouncing his feet against that silly suede couch, sitting in between Julissa and Terrence (106& Park) promoting their new album, and a year later be working full time at the post office licking stamps. Most artists just aren’t built for that type of pressure. However, Our main man Drake rose to the occasion, and showed some sac on this second album.

Maybe not officially, but So Far Gone was served and digested as Drake’s debut album. It was how we got to know Drake and most certainly the rubric of comparison for his later work. Easily one of the best bodies of music in the last ten years, it was followed up by a, safely played, Thank me Later. It’s easy to go platinum when you have the biggest buzz since Curtis in ‘03 and put out a compilation album with Hip Hop’s ’92 Dream Team.  Although an economic success, generating record sales of platinum status and yielding hyper profitable tours across the globe, for those who do this music shit, who live it and breath it, TML was not the self-proclaimed classic that Drake said it was. It was just another album that you got out of your system in a few months. It lacked the timeless adhesive used to assemble So Far Gone. October’s Very Own rushed through that album like 2 grams on the tour bus. Months after the album was released, Drake acknowledged this himself, “Thank Me Later was a rushed album, I didn’t get to take the time that I wanted to on that record, I rushed a lot of the songs and sonically, I didn’t get to sit with the record, it was like once it was done, it was like its done.” Drake said in a sit down with 1Xtra’s DJ Semtex. Time, isn’t something you can’t fake. You either Take Care, or you don’t.

Take Care, is the album that Drake fans, who that waited up till midnight on 2.13.09 to download So Far Gone, (only for it to be pushed back until 3am because Omarion couldn’t get his vocals right), wanted last year! So Far Gone showed us Drake’s range of musical appreciation from songs with Wayne over Jay-Z’s Ignorant Shit to love ballads with Lykke Li. The… almost lefty approach that Drake took on So Far Gone is what made all four corners of the states embrace him like their own and buy into his movement. Those clever arrangements return on this album with features from Mr. shoulder pads and grass skirts himself, Andre 3000, on The Real Her and warm riffs on the harmonica from Stevie Wonder on Doing it Wrong.

The album starts off a little sleepy with Over my Dead Body and Shot for Me. One more added to the “I’m better than you” play list, and something for the ladies. Crew Love, aside from having the funniest line on the album,

“Take your nose off my keyboard/ what you bothering me for/ there’s a room full of niggas/ what you following me for?”

brings us some more of that dark, arrogant, hedonistic, stick-your-tongue-out-and-let-this-E-pill-dissolve, Weekend music with big drum patterns asymmetrically sprinkled over the melodies. That Toronto synergy is a strong thing right now.

Title track Take Care, featuring Rihanna, is definitely a stand out record and is set off by that Gil Scott sample over up-tempo dub step rhythm. Even though this is the 5^th Gil Scott sample we’ve heard in Hip Hop in the last 5 years (Kanye, Common, etc.), Jamie XX pulls it off.  Kendrick Lamar was a pleasant surprise on the Buried Alive interlude. Not an expected collab, but if anyone is “next”, it’s Kendrick.

The middle of the album is full of big energy, machismo, and poignant tales of loving strippers. This is clearly the windows up, system bumping section. And the way Just Blaze volleyed and served Aubrey and Ross with the anthemic Lord Knows is sinful.  We love the flowery singsong hybrids, but sometimes we just want 3 minutes and 15 seconds of rapping.

He takes his foot off of the accelerator, and brings us under a microscope with Cameras. Tales of his girl going bat shit, as Drake borrows the cool of Denzel in the 80’s, (not Denzel in Pelham 123) and plays kissy face with some PYT in a music video. Not something most of us can relate to, but I can see that being a problem. Different. Hard.

3 Stacks doesn’t disappoint, not even a little bit, on The Real Her. Dre, Drake, and Wayne share stories of the cycle of women in the industry and the search for the real her.

A song better than the title would suggest, HYFR (Hell Yeah Fuckin’ Right) embodies a flow we don’t here often from Drake, that rapid fire, Chicago sniping, vehemently annoyed at the stupid questions of reporters. Dope!

Drake nails the landing with a moving song dedicated to his mother and uncle, Look What You’ve Done. Sounds like it’s the prior months to when it all started. You can never go wrong with a song for mama. The album closes with remake of the Juvenile’s Back That Azz Up. 40 and Drake took one of Rap’s most over played songs and made it palatable again. Nicely done.