After a long hiatus, I returned to the album this summer and was flabbergasted to discover it was actually one of my favorite hip-hop releases of the past couple years. But those beats and those hooks had me coming back over and over again during the summer, with me slowly finding more respect for the awkward honesty Drake wanted to share - not to mention simply huge collaborations like “Light Up” and “Miss Me”. Initially I was fairly ambivalent about that album: nice hooks, some clever raps, catchy beats and a whole lot of Drake-being-soft. Let’s detour back to Thank Me Later for a moment. Which is to say, if you thought Thank Me Later was Drake playing it safe on the heels of So Far Gone‘s runaway success, Drake heard you.
The opening number is centered on a gorgeous little piano melody and Noah Shebib’s signature low pass filters, both of which support Drake dancing between rapping and alto vocals more nimbly than ever during verses that lead us towards a chorus from a woman married to Our Lady Peace’s Raine Maida. But hip-hop always found its roots in bass, in at least a measurable amount of grit and mean-mugged struggle. Sure, rap artists have said beautiful things, featured beautiful choruses and, at the very least, introduced video viewers to a litany of beautiful women. In fact I’m nearly positive it’s never really been attempted before. Doesn’t it sound funny to you, too? It’s a weird thing to say about a hip-hop album.
There’s something fun you can do when discussing Take Care with people that grew up in a different era of hip-hop, or just hate pop music.
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