Back! Let's Talk About Drake

Okay.

So back in July when I said I'd be doing this blogging thing, well I was set on it and then the TV came on and I forgot what a blog was.

Somewhere in between that time blogs became pretty popular and I personally enjoy reading some (and by some I really mean like...two...). I'm going through a pretty cool time in my life though both musically and socially and I think I'd like to start...writing about it I guess.

So in the coming months I start my audition tour, which is really just a glamorized way of me just going from college to college auditioning and then beg convince them to accept me into the college so I can...learn more. I'll be going to Berklee, VCU, Howard and JMU (I think theres another school but whatever) and hopefully they'll ignore the fact that I'm a subpar student and focus on my music ability. Yeeeyuh

So this year is either going to be a great year of me preparing to start learning music at a higher level, or a year of me sitting around trying to figure out where to go from there. Hopefully its the former...

So quick story. Today I had an interview for a job which I got (YEESSSSS) and my friend (we'll call him Rick) is giving me a ride back and my boss rolls with us. So my boss immediately says to me "Yo, so Rick tells me you rap...". So instantly I consider opening the door and jumping out, but Rick convinces me to freestyle with him (Rick is incredible at freestyling, which is a novelty skill for white kids in Fairfax). So we spit rhymes back and forth...in front of my boss. And I'm trying to stay focused and watch what I'm saying in front of my...boss, and Rick just doesn't give a shit. He spits a line about having sex with your sister and then spits a line about anal beads...just some horrible...tasteless comments...but it was cool. He can really spit.

Okay so 2009 was a really cool year for music, and by cool I mean that Canadian kid Drake dominated everything. I'm glad Drake is successful, since I followed his mixtape run back in 2008 before So Far Gone came out. I wasn't really anticipating So Far Gone since I really got Comeback Season and Room For Improvement because I was intrigued that one of my favorite characters on Degrassi decided that he could rap with the best of em. When So Far Gone came out and blew me away [||] I went back and listened to the other too. Drake is a great rapper. Incredible almost, no doubt one of the best lyrical talents we have around right now. After So Far Gone people started comparing him to Cudi, which was stupid. Cudi isn't a good rapper and Drake is. Drake WOULD be up there competing with my favorite newcomer, J. Cole, and of course my favorite "newcomer" ever, Lupe Fiasco, but Drake made one fatal mistake.

Lil Wayne.

Don't get me wrong I love the pot/codeine gorging rapper, but his "message" completely contradicted what Drake was about. How the hell does Drake have a song called "Video Girl", talking about how girls should aspire and work towards being more than the ho's in videos, and then he teams up with Lil Wayne and jingles like "Every Girl" come around flaunting about how they...want to have sex with "Every Girl" in the world. Don't get me wrong I agree with both messages and I'm sure Drake does too, but it just didn't feel right to watch a newcomer that you really loved start changing so...rapidly. This deterioration of his old meaningful lyric based music was even chronicled by him in the So Far Gone mixtape with the tracks "Say What's Real" and "Successful". To me that was both incredible and sad, for a rapper to talk about how the world around him and his drive for success causes him to compromise some his incredible lyrical integrity. Drake is great, but I would love to see old Drake. Current Drake is Lil Wayne's lyrical sidekick. To me, they really compliment each other perfectly. Drake's clean image juxtaposes (let that word soak in) Lil Wayne's griminess bad boy visage. They seem like a cool crew. The problem is every time they rap they don't talk about ANYTHING. Literally. EVERY one of Drakes songs in Comeback Season and Room For Improvement had a topic and he discussed it throughly in rhyme. It was a cool 90's golden age vibe. Even in So Far Gone his lone songs had topics (not sure about his experimental singing songs...I try ignore singing Drake), but everytime Lil Wayne jumped beside him they would just rap in punchline tangents about how cool and how high they are. Awesome man you're so cool and high man! Me too! I relate to your music!

This trend of dumbing down of the audience isn't necessarily terrible. Jay-Z even admitted to it in "Moment Of Clarity", but the difference is that Hov still keeps levels of personal content in his music. When he raps, he puts himself in the music and really chronicles little ideas or personal thoughts in his head. Drake does this less and less. That song he released that got no attention but really should've called "Fear" even discussed how he knew his music was getting a little sillier, but you can keep old Drake and still put out hits? You don't have to throw in nonsensical lines about shutting down my mall and telling every girl that she's the one for you but you're really not gonna call...or how about you talk about something other than girls man. If you're gonna talk about a girl. how about you talk about a girl who left you because you started hanging out with possibly the biggest drug abuser in the Hip Hop industry and threw away your socially conscious, intelligent lyrical content for bubblegum braggadocio rap. That would be cool.

I dunno, it's just disappointing. I feel like we lost what could've been a powerful smart lyricist in the mainstream (sounds like a joke when I read it back to myself). The Drake presented to us is, at least to me, a watered down version of the lyrical killer that Drake really could be. I could really talk for a while on this topic and start pulling out the lyrical citations. Drake was really incredible. I hope that Drake shows up on his upcoming debut album. It's incredible how much hype there is for just a debut album. It shows how hungry everyone was for something that was simply different. I'm a little scared it might end up being more of the same.

~Remian

Next time: Can Lil Wayne rock?

Listening To:

A Scorpio's Mind-Drake//Room For Improvement