IYRTITL is the work of a perfectionist curator, a restless star, a man who has reached the top and now looks over the precipice in a double-effort to repel competition and contemplate his hard-earned, often-perilous position.
On If You’re Reading This, all of this chest beating is delivered over the most darkly hypnotic beats Drake’s graced since So Far Gone.
With no clear bangers on the landscape, Late feels more like the platonic ideal of a Drake album: a woozy, wordy stream-of-consciousness whose stylistic shifts are subtle on a molecular level.
If You’re Reading concentrates the anger pocketed within NWTS’ moodiness. The result is more thrilling.
With If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, Drake is giving a voice to the voiceless, spearheading Toronto as a mecca for creativity that will rival that of Atlanta and Los Angeles.
With If You’re Reading This, there is union between his effort to “mythologically aggrandize” himself and to relieve creative pressure by half-redundantly (and “meaningfully”) delivering what people what: Drake content, Drake lyrics, Drake beats… a Drake album.
This enthralling, enigmatic statement conjures a mood that's all its own.
Drake's sounding more confident than ever on a series of somewhat minimal, dark, moody, trap-inspired pop rap beats with contemporary R&B change-ups.
If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late finds Drake continuing to move away from the tenderness and sentimentality of 2011’s Take Care and toward a dense-and-hard lyrical direction with slow, low-end heavy beats that bounce up and down in the mix, swirl around and dissolve into amorphous sub-bass.
If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is the sound of a man reaffirming what the world should already know in somber language.
This is a refined, looser, freer Drake. Between only a couple hiccups, If You're Reading This It's Too Late weaves personal raps, 6-side boosts and absorbing production in cohesive fashion.
If You're Reading this it's Too Late is cold, heartless, and detached realizations of Drake's growing ennui.
Par for the course for a Drake album lately, but the difference here is that there are no pop singles to balance the claustrophobic rants.
His raps are as information-rich as ever, and that’s what makes It’s Too Late feel necessary, even when the material is second-rate.
Beat-wise, 'If You're Reading This It's Too Late' is fire ... But at times the lyrical component can leave you cold.
Intended as a free mixtape, but sold as an album to reportedly help expedite a now-contentious record company contract, If You're Reading This It's Too Late is the sound of a hip-hop superstar working out his psychological issues.
If You're Reading This, It's Too Late is a fine, worthy successor to the sad-eyed, downbeat, introverted range Drake explored with some skill on Nothing Was the Same and Thank Me Later.
hip hop think tank – episode 1 – Drake's investigation
Hey AOTY, as announced 1 week ago, here is the launch of my second new mini-series dedicated to Hip Hop and published weekly. Hip hop think tank will be built on no rules. I can talk about an album, an artist, a song, a musical sub style in particular, no matter as long as the subject is related to Hip Hop. You will find all the episodes that will be added to my lists. I'm also open to suggestions, even if I can't assure you ... read more
“Some nights I wish I could go back in life, not to change shit, just to feel a couple things twice”
This record really holds a special place in my heart cause a close friend of mine put me on to this tape back in 2015 when it dropped, and I immediately loved it since it's Drake's hardest and just best release.
We bumped this shit non-stop that year, plus we would play it almost every time we would get together, than I moved to another city and sort off lost touch with my dog and ... read more
Obama's favorite album, trust.
Not a huge Drake fan, but this is certainly his best.
Fav Track: Know Yourself
Least Fav Track: Wednesday Night Interlude
Drake has yet to make anything that comes close to this imo. The hunger and confidence Drake brought on this record is something I desperately needed when I felt low as fuck and the last thing I wanted to do was let misery get the best of me.
Fav tracks: All
Least fav tracks: N/A
1 | Legend 4:01 | 82 |
2 | Energy 3:01 | 88 |
3 | 10 Bands 2:57 | 82 |
4 | Know Yourself 4:35 | 90 |
5 | No Tellin' 5:10 | 84 |
6 | Madonna 2:57 | 76 |
7 | 6 God 3:00 | 84 |
8 | Star67 4:54 | 85 |
9 | Preach 3:56 feat. PARTYNEXTDOOR | 68 |
10 | Wednesday Night Interlude 3:32 feat. PARTYNEXTDOOR | 71 |
11 | Used To 4:28 feat. Lil Wayne | 81 |
12 | 6 Man 2:47 | 82 |
13 | Now & Forever 4:41 | 77 |
14 | Company 4:12 feat. Travis Scott | 80 |
15 | You & The 6 4:24 | 80 |
16 | Jungle 5:20 | 91 |
17 | 6PM In New York 4:43 | 87 |
#3 | / | Dummy |
#3 | / | Rolling Stone |
#4 | / | Blare |
#5 | / | Stashed |
#8 | / | Pigeons & Planes |
#9 | / | Complex |
#10 | / | Vulture |
#12 | / | Billboard |
#12 | / | Time Out London |
#12 | / | Time Out New York |