With the success of 2009’s So Far Gone, Drake’s Thank Me Later album will finally be unleashed to the hip-hop world on June 15. Despite the fact that so many actors have turned rappers and singers in the past and fallen by the wayside, the Canadian native reaches into his rhyming repertoire and finds a way to turn rap on its ear—or in essence, begin his reach toward the proverbial lyricist big league ladder. Let’s see how that works out in our Thank Me Later album review.
“Fireworks” begins the fourteen-cut album. With a dark and eerily vibe that features Alicia Keys, the song converges with Drake spitting about his rise to fame, relationship pleasantries, and his parent’s divorce. The laid-backness of the Crada and 40-produced beat is where Drake is his fiercest and seems the most comfortable. This is also evident by head nodding “The Resistance,” which perhaps is Thank Me Later’s best track for its immersion into long drawn-out bars and profound subject matter by the emcee.
The Kanye West-produced “Show Me a Good Time” revisits the subject of romance without the mushy stuff, while “Fancy” gives a shout-out to women who take good care of themselves with cameos from T.I. and Swizz Beats. Drake collabs with Young Jeezy on “Unforgettable,” whose drum beat is worth listening to the track alone; raps alongside Nicki Minaj on “Up All Night” and team-ups Jay-Z on the celebratory “Light Up,” The song could go down as “Off That” part deux as the Canadian emcee did not get a chance to show off on The Blueprint 3. “Miss Me,” slated as the album’s third single, is a banger but refrains from the edginess of “Over” and Thank Me Later‘s closer, “Thank Me Now,” engineered by studio wizard Timbaland.
It might be that he starred on television, the fact that he is a protégé of the long-standing Cash Money machine, or the fact that many believe he is hip-hop’s savior has propelled Drake to rap stardom. The Canadian rapper proves with this debut that rap is his forte. From the pauper-to-prince tale of “Over” to the 808 sound of “Find Your Love,” Thank Me Later is a viable release that could quite possibly be hard for the twenty-three-year-old emcee to follow.
Drake Thank Me Later album review
This album receives a PARL
Rating System:
P… Horrible
PA… Tolerable
PAR… Good
PARL… Kinda Great
PARLÉ… Classic
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