“Star Crossed”
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony said it best “I’ll see you at the crossroads so you won’t be lonely.”
While that classic hip hop song is about death, the afterlife and the loss of loved ones, a similar ethos one could say exists for Drake and this current moment in his career on the eighth studio album For All The Dogs. Drake, as a younger artist, was viewed as a progressive figure with a vision pushing and blending the lines of modern day R&B and Hip-Hop. In simpler terms, Drake could sing and rap well and we were suckers for some steady bar work with good hooks in the modern hip-hop landscape post Graduation Kanye West.
The Canadian rapper has seemingly shifted his focus from crafting high-quality music to releasing viral hits with big-name features. Because of his immense talent and hit making abilities Drake’s career has now become more of a big selling social media pop artist than the original, quality crafted singing, songwriting rap artist that led him to superstardom in the first place.
This conundrum confronting Drake, as it has confronted many artists before him (see Jay Z ‘Magna Carter’) , has projected him into the crossroads of sacrificing quality for brand name recognition features and For All TheDogs is the formation of two worlds colliding.
Despite this 2023 reality there is no argument that Drake has one of hip hop’s most storied careers in history. However, The hip-hop “purists” problem therein lies with the fact that Drake really doesn’t make hip-hop albums, and he hasn’t for the better part of a decade now.
Ironically, the biggest drawbacks of this album is the fact that Drake actually does not rap enough. What was once his secret weapon, his superpower as arguably the greatest hook writer, hook singer, and possibly hit maker that hip hop has ever seen, that magic seems to have waned on For All The Dogs. In a serendipitous twist of Hip Hop fate, in this current landscape Drake is actually a better rapper than he is a singer and hit creator.
Because of that, this album comes off as uneven, sometimes undesirable – with the focus now being transitioned to doing love ballads that while sound hip-hop inspired are not identifiable hip-hop per se.
While Drake and Joe Budden choose to engage in a little “retired rapper turned podcaster” on “Hip Hop Megastar” crime, some of Budden’s commentary is actually accurate. The songs where Drake is rapping are the songs that connect best.
“First Person Shooter” with J. Cole is one of the strongest songs on the album and Cole delivers one of if not the verse of the year. You almost sense the original version of the record ended with the Cole verse and Drake knew he had come back and responded hard to withstand the blistering verse run Cole is on.
Drake’s peak and the album’s peak is the stellar “8am in Charlotte” is wonderfully produced by Griselda’s Conductor Williams. The record is soulful, lyrical and insightful. 8 AM is reflective of where Drake should have taken this entire project.
It is a fine line to tow, quite frankly as rapper in their late 30’s that still is the biggest draw and thereby feels coerced into forced, stream driven records with Bad Bunny and Sexy Red. The numbers may move but the quality still suffers on For All The Dogs.
A2HH Rating: 3 out of 5