Following Ice Man, my interest in Drake has been at an all time low, and it really wasn’t all that high to begin with. His current career is filled with complacency and an ego so large that its blocks any ability to truly create something worthy of the success Drake has received. Listen, I’m not a Drake hater, I just feel like returning to this era of his on Take Care shows a very sad and glaringly obvious display of how far he’s fallen artistically. Take car displays a time when Drake was capable of simply making cohesive albums that did enough outside the norm to make him stand out amongst his peers. For someone of Drakes size, this should be the bare minimum, but with incredible abilities to make hits, and a team full of marketing geniuses, Drake has managed to move past this era into a new chapter of half baked albums, carried entirely by a small handful of hits and the social media presence that follows. Take Care was different though. Out the gate you’re met with this beautiful, hopeful, inspiring and braggadocios atmosphere that carries throughout the album. Nearly every song for the entire first half of the album is a classic, hell Headlines is one of the best rap songs ever made if you ask me. Not only that, but this album ACTUALLY feels like an album! The sound, the themes, the features, everything just flows so seamlessly and feels right in place. It’s not like something like For All The Dogs which flows like some sort of mixtape. I’ll say this, this album does fall off towards the end. The features, the quality, and the memorability of the songs really falls off towards the back end of the album. That being said, the front half hits so heavy that it’s hard to really feel dissatisfied at the end, even with how weakly it finishes. Is it Drakes best? No, I wouldn’t say so. But it’s a great album that I do return to anytime I’m in one of my rare Drake moods, and it delivers each time. It’s a classic for a reason, and sadly this Drake era is dead and gone
