There’s been a lot of disrespect on Drake’s name lately.
The king of rap and R&B has created countless hits, starred in television shows and even led the so-called “Canadian invasion” to the music charts with his Toronto sound. With so much fame, he’s become an easy target. He’s starred as the subject of many rap roasts, been targeted for trying to be solely platonic friends with young celebrities like Billie Eilish and was even booed off the stage of Tyler, The Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw festival.
But Drake doesn’t let the hate impact him or his work. When people start criticizing, he comes back harder.
The best example of that is his latest mixtape, Dark Lane Demo Tapes, which has a great mix of moods, solid featured artists and a hard reminder to the world that he’s still claiming his throne as king of the rap game.
Drake is one of the most consistent rappers with putting out music. He has been consistently putting out full length albums since 2009, missing only the years 2012 and 2014. Eleven albums and mixtapes and several EPs later, Drake has the rap game wrapped around his finger.
A lot of his criticism comes from having a sort of formulaic sound, but this actually works to his advantage. He’s found a very loose formula of how he wants his music to sound, and though he does use that for some of his tracks, he’s always experimenting with sounds. On Dark Lane, he approaches familiar vibes while expanding on their sounds and making a mix of his harder rap days, like If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and his greater focus on R&B, like side two of Scorpion.
Some of the best tracks on the tape include the fiery, all-around hype “D4L” featuring Future and Young Thug; the vulnerable, mellow “Chicago Freestyle” featuring Giveon; the honest, multi-layered “Desires” featuring Future; and the lonely, soft yet fast-paced “Time Flies.”
He features several notable artists on the mixtape, including his right-hand man Future, Young Thug, Playboi Carti, Giveon, Fivio Foreign, Sosa Geek and Chris Brown. The featured artists add a lot of great layers to the sound and provide a nice change of pace throughout the album.
The biggest criticism of the album is that it’s slightly unorganized. It doesn’t know exactly what it wants to be; it’s like a junk drawer of tracks that are all individually good but don’t really have any flow with one another. Though it seems Drake wasn’t really going for a specific theme with this mixtape, it definitely could’ve had more of a flow than the audience is presented with.
In the same vein, Drake wasn’t relying on a producer to create a cohesive sound with Dark Lane. With this in mind, the moody nature throughout the album actually becomes kind of impressive. He is bitter, he is vulnerable, he is lavish and he is always aggressive. It’s what makes Drake not just relevant, but beloved and popular after singing and rapping through the ’00s, the ’10s and now moving into the ’20s.
Overall, the mixtape shows the promise that Drake has more in store, and he isn’t letting anyone get him down. The mixtape is meant to be a teaser for Drake’s sixth studio album, which is set to premiere sometime in the summer of 2020.
