September 18, 2013
A Sensitive Rap Star Toughens Up
By JON CARAMANICA
Let it be known that the Tough Drake era begins not this week, with the release of “Nothing Was the Same,” the first official Tough Drake album, but rather began all the way back on Jan. 6, 2012. That day saw the release of the video for “Stay Schemin,” a Rick Ross song featuring Drake and French Montana. The clip is a fuzzy Michael Mann rip-off, nighttime Miami reduced to blacks, grays and electric blues, oozing sinister energy.
In it, Drake dons a black sweatshirt, black jeans, black boots and a gold chain. He spends most of his verse staring hard into the camera, his eyebrows barely moving. He gestures brusquely with a bandanna in his right hand. And he delivers what is easily the most tart, harsh, menacing verse of his career: “Might look light, but we heavy though.”
This came not even two months after the release of “Take Care,” Drake’s masterpiece album of sensitivity and recrimination, and it read like an almost total repudiation of it. That album was a bloodletting of heartbreak and anxieties, while “Stay Schemin” was a firm punch to the jaw that became a staple at the same time as some purple songs from “Take Care.” Not only was Drake writing his own narrative, he was also writing his own counternarrative. It’s difficult to tell which of those is now the main plot — both are in play on “Nothing Was the Same” (Young Money/Cash Money/Republic), Drake’s third excellent major-label album, and the first to come as he is firmly ensconced in hip-hop’s top tier.
Before, he was an interloper effecting seismic change in hip-hop, thanks to his dismantling of the usual facades of acquisitiveness and fearlessness. Building on Kanye West’s template of ambivalence, Drake took Mr. West’s self-examination and stripped it of all its agitation, preserving only the emotional turmoil. He wanted success, and was aware of his more conventional competition, but his concerns were primarily internal.
But Drake is on top now, the genre’s stylistic standard-bearer and its most reliable and versatile hit maker, and his concerns have shifted accordingly. On “Nothing Was the Same” Drake broods like before, sure, but also puffs his chest in equal measure. He’s always used his music to send messages to women who’ve broken his heart, or whom he just couldn’t hold tight enough. Now he’s got something to lord over them, too.
The musical choices are familiar — hazy, often doleful post-soul and low-end-heavy hip-hop, largely moving slowly and with deliberateness. Most of the album is produced by Drake’s longtime associate 40, who’s sticking close to the sound that’s become their joint signature. The aching hit “Hold On, We’re Going Home” recalls “Find Your Love,” from 2010; “Pound Cake” is reminiscent of “Dreams Money Can Buy,” from 2011.
The most noticeable change in Drake over the last couple of years has been physical, not musical: suddenly he’s muscled, full of hard angles. The eyes remain soft, but everything around them has been remade. This is the externalization of the bravado that is now an essential part of his music — he’s bragged plenty before, but now it has weight. (It’s probably worth mentioning the New York nightclub altercation between Drake’s crew and Chris Brown’s crew in June 2012; when Drake spoke of it in a recent GQ interview, he had an ominous air, as if anticipating how things could get worse.)
But muscles aside, there’s no real physicality to Drake’s toughness. It’s a psychological evolution more than anything, the result of accepting his stature as reality, not just a dream. In the past, laying himself bare has been the most natural thing. But when you’re the object of ire and jealousy, the apt response is to flash teeth and snarl a bit.
The “Nothing Was the Same” tough talk began several months ago with the release of “Started From the Bottom” — like most of Drake’s opening album singles, it’s far more muscular than what appears on the rest of the album. It’s rousing and victorious — “There ain’t really much out here that’s popping off without us” — and also a bit malevolent.
That was one of several songs, dating back to “Stay Schemin,” in which Drake put up his dukes and prepared for a fight: the baleful “5AM in Toronto,” or his verse on the remix to “Versace” by Migos (“This year I’m eating your food and my table got so many plates on it”), or the joyful flexing on ASAP Rocky’s single, the unprintable title of which shortens to “Problems.”
These songs taken together are the equivalent of a shuttle burning through its rocket boosters before thrusting into space, a familiar Drake strategy. Such sturdy and assured early singles and guest appearances free him up to make an album heavy on catharsis.
That’s only part of what Drake’s done on “Nothing Was the Same,” but still a huge part. Sometimes the opposing personalities occupy the same song, as on “Furthest Thing,” part tender and part tense. But this album includes some of his most diaristic work, including “From Time,” which is full of scars: “Passive aggressive when we’re texting, I can feel the distance,” he says casually, as if exhausted. The song continues with melancholy piano flourishes by Chilly Gonzales, who set the reflective, miserable mood on “Marvins Room” on “Take Care.” (“From Time” also recalls Common’s wistful “I Used to Love H.E.R.” — and maybe that’s a quiet swipe at Common, who took some lazy shots at Drake a couple of years back.)
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