Welcome back to another post from Lazy Desperado. After more than a year hiatus since my post on the downfall of Roe V. Wade, the Lazy Desperado newsletter is back with a slightly fresh coat of paint. We’ll still be discussing politics, music, TV/movies and video games.
Posts will be bi-weekly and limited to one topic per newsletter so the content will be less all over the place. One larger post with a couple shoutouts/links at the end. Today, we’re starting with a critique of Drake’s decreasing album quality and later on this week you’ll see another post about oil protesters at *checks notes* Street Fighter 6 tournaments. Thanks for opening the letter. Enjoy 🤠.
I have not been able to escape Drake since 2009. No one born after 1993 has been able to.
Whether it’s the near infinite memes about his secret child and the Pusha T beef from a few years back to the more vintage, aged takes on Drake like his tendency for sensitivity, he’s is everywhere for anyone interested or around hip-hop. The heavy-eyebrowed Canadian is an inevitable figure, taking notes from his rival/mentor Kanye West by injecting himself into whatever the kids are up that year, like endorsing BlocBoy JB and Central Cee to his lifting up (and subsequent tearing down) of ILoveMakkonnen. Anyone who graduated from college or went to a party before 2019 can probably tell you a Drake song they love or really hate.
In an indirect way, Drake inspired careers in writing and snarky commentary. The brutal, hilarious Big Ghost Chronicles review of 2011’s Take Care (iykyk) critiqued possibly one of the biggest artists in the game with no mercy, as did many of the other posts on the legendary Blogspot page from the early 2010s. He’s called the “human electric slide” and compared to the Pilsbury doughboy for his soft attitude and punked for that STILL egregious line in “Lord Knows” about going through his date’s phone when she goes to the bathroom.
While Big Ghost, and many others at the time, could never have predicted Drake’s current lore and longevity in hip-hop, he had him pegged for many of the same issues he has in his current day records. Despite Drake’s attempts to shake off the accusations of making vapid, paint-by-the numbers rap songs with corny dad jokes in 2011, he’s still doing the same thing under the guise of creating a new sound for modern rappers to copy. If anything “For All the Dogs,” Drake’s newest record, shows that the false bravado, nitpicking strawman for women and obvious wave riding have only been amped up since his rise to the top in the 2010s. He’s traded his signature fawning misogyny for blatant disrespect for any woman, and that’s about all that changed. Oh, and his son is on the album too so you know he’s a good dad.
Production has never really been an issue with Drake records, as he has a great ear for production and features but “For All the Dogs” shows that the polish wears thin when 40, his lead producer up until Scorpion, isn’t there to reign in whatever chest puffing antics are going on in the studio. An old, leaked, unfinished song from another artist with a Drake verse tagged on it would have never made it onto a Drake studio album before, yet “IDGAF” is on the tracklist and still sounds two years old. Drake’s verse is mixed differently from the rest of the song, another problem that pops up frequently on his last three albums as well.
For each of the excellent, spacey and poppy BNYX beats or the distorted drums and tense production from Southside, there is a generic Lil Yachty beat that might have only made the album because he’s a recent consistent collaborator. His other bestie, 21 Savage, has a feature tacked onto the end of lazy, drill biting “Calling For You.” It adds nothing to the song and could’ve stayed in the pile of throwaways from “Her Loss” or stuck onto the back of that album. Instead, we get songs like this, “BBL Interlude” and a wasted SZA feature on a 5-minute lead single that feels 10 minutes long.
Some parts of “For All the Dogs” feel less like fully executed efforts and more like ideas for songs. “All The Parties,” one of the few highlights, has a vibey, party starting first half with a catchy hook from Chief Keef followed by what feels like an unneeded 2015 Drake throwback - the beat goes underwater, Drake sloppily remixes the hook and shouts out the many women he won’t leave alone before describing an imaginary Canadian gang war. A promising, long overdue collaboration turned into a standard Drake song that can be found all over his catalogue.
For all of the half-baked ideas probably recorded while on Adderall and hanging out with Lil Yachty during a late-night studio session, “For All The Dogs” shows a few glimmers of the talent Drake has but hasn’t put to use in years. “Daylight” addresses the internet rumor that Drake put a hit out on XXXTENTACION in between catchy flows, a punchy but short hook and the fake, almost believable, bravado he’s known for. “What Would Pluto Do,” a homosocial ode to Future with a bunch of Lil Yachty ad libs and production, is carefree and unserious while being one of the better structured songs on the album. A funny bar about Lil Wayne accidentally ruining Drake’s Sprite partnership and a sticky, silly hook make up for the elementary sex pun about sliding into a ballot box and “hanging in the summer like a coat.” The puns have always been a staple for Drake, and while this album is full of barf worth lines like “Whole gang fuckin' eastbound and they down just like Danny McBride,” some come and go without being hard to listen to.
One of the only singles released before the album, “8am in Charlotte” extends the timestamp saga of Drake songs while fitting snugly within the lineage. Conducter Williams’ soul sampling beat fit for a Westside Gunn album carries Drake’s muttering about felonius friends and pretending to be a bad guy in between lazy metaphors. The delivery of the lines over the soothing, boom bap beat almost make some of the goofiest lines about Silence of the Lambs (get it? because it was silent in his lamborghini?) and lazy comparisons disappear into the beat. It’s not an excellent song, but it’s almost like Drake put more care, attention and polish put into “8am” than most of its 22 other tracks. “Rich Baby Daddy” is carried by breakout, Gucci Mane-ish star Sexxy Red and SZA, but still brings fun to a pretty monotone section of the album.
Drake is usually just starting to piece together a fully realized reocrd “For All The Dogs” before phoning it in for what we can assume is chart bait. “First Person Shooter,” with his peer and competitor J. Cole is meant to be a show stopper. Yet, both rappers at the top of their game phone in their verses. Cole uses this feature to plug his next album, again, before making dad jokes about IT, namedropping YoungBoy Never Broke Again and letting us know he spends too much time on Instagram instead of making the album he’s been advertising in guest verses for several years. Drake keeps hyperventilating about their collaboration being like the Super Bowl before forcing another beat switch at the end of the song where he spells out that he is just trying to beat the Michael Jackson chart numbers with this song and others. That’s why he made his fans listen to this song that is his and Cole’s most dry collaboration so far.
As Drake’s fifth release since 2020, “For All The Dogs” is neither more polished nor more memorable than “Her Loss,” “Honestly, Nevermind,” or “Certified Lover Boy.” If anything “Honestly” can be commended for trying something new with house music and R&B, but the other three albums peak at a similar level of mediocrity. They are bloated and full of middling efforts at songs with glimpses into the talent Drake sometimes reminds that he has. Most of the tracks on Drake albums since 2020 sound like he made them for himself and his friends, with inside jokes, lazy takes and near non-existent writing for easy recitement for drunken nights and after parties in the 6. “For All The Dogs” falls right in line.
There is nothing wrong with making music for personal consumption, but Drake albums were more tolerable when the diary entry-like verses had an editor or at least someone in the room to say “this ain’t it.” In the present, it seems like damn near anything Drake records within a period of time will make it onto his next album if his entourage likes listening to it. There must be no reason to make an honest attempt for your fans when you’re too busy immortalizing your friends as doorbells, rolling 20 deep to shutdown restaurants and promoting strip clubs. Hopefully Drake’s self-imposed break from music will be a prolonged one so he can drop the lazy Yachty beats, Great Value brand misogyny and parasitic attempts to connect to upcoming trends for an actually fully realized, effortful album.