What a Time reminds us that music is best when it’s enjoyed when in the company of others. It’s a project that demands that the listener live vicariously through it and looks to give hope through music to those willing to listen. Nothing more, nothing less.
Though it’s not sustained over the tape’s eleven tracks, two of which are solo tracks, one for each rapper, the collaborative spirit remains the strongest selling point.
The highlights of What a Time to Be Alive come when Drake and Future take advantage of their differences.
It’s cutting and honest and self-congratulatory and vindictive. It’s fantastically decadent and brutally real at the same time. It won’t be leaving the playlist any time soon.
'What A Time To Be Alive' often sounds more like a Drake album than the jazzier, busier records that Future usually creates. Yet the Atlanta rapper dominates the record, demonstrating his impressive adaptability.
What a Time is the sound of two of our biggest current pop figures using each other’s strengths to bring out their own.
After all the hype has worn off and the music is offered up on a diamond crusted platter, it's an unfortunate reality to note that What A Time To Be Alive doesn't quite hold weight as the cultural force it was expected to be.
Drake takes his talent as a hook man to another level on What A Time To Be Alive and in putting his elevated skills alongside Future’s, he creates some truly must-listen moments.
These are creative guys bouncing off a group of similar ideas and seeing where the muse takes them. It isn’t always pretty. It isn’t really innovative.
Reportedly made in just six days, it's rarely, if ever, sloppy, but it never achieves perfection either. It's merely a strong collection of songs made by two unstoppable forces in their primes.
This is the sound of Future's Dirty South meeting Drake's Great White North, both artists playing off their louder-than-life personalities without overthinking the details.
Drake’s disclosure that the project was made in six days is less of an impressive stat than it is an accurate summation of what we have here: two rappers who maxed out on their chemistry and made some cool songs.
What the tape lacks in congruence, it makes up for in glimmering Metro Boomin production.
A surprise mixtape that went from announcement to the top of the Billboard charts within a matter of a few weeks, What a Time to Be Alive is also a worthy hang session from MCs Drake and Future, one that feels instant, spontaneous, and just messy enough to keep off the top shelf.
This feels like a flying visit through an impromptu victory party.
It's decent. While a few tracks feature an equal and exciting marriage of Champagne Papi and Future Hendrix, most of what's here feels like DS2 runoff with a solid Drake feature.
It's this considerable gulf in style and, it must said, quality between the two which leaves 'What A Time To Be Alive', Drake and Future's first full-length pair-up, disjointed and unfocused.
What A Time to Be Alive feels more like a Future album featuring Drake.
There's little — outside the three or four cohesive, codeine-fuelled joints surprisingly carried mostly by Future — that reaches the potential of what What a Time to Be Alive could have been.
There’s very little evidence here that makes the case for either as the game-changing superstar he actually is.
5 years ago trap music was at its peak. (DS2, Rodeo, WATTBA all in the same damn year)
Future combines forces with Drake to make a project together, and it's pretty damn good! Future and Drake have some really great chemistry together, with tracks like "Digital Dash" and "Jumpman" being straight FIRE from both of em. I also really loved the track "Diamonds Dancing", as that track had some honestly stellar production and verses from Drake and Future, its prob one of the best tracks either of em have made! I really think this is one of the better ... read more
Drake and Future literally have 0 chemistry togehter. Yall really say this is better than Watch the Throne?
This album is such a joy to listen to due to the electric chemistry between drake and future showcased on tracks like diamonds dancing, and the production that these two are bouncing off of is amazing it ties everything together so beautifully, but the main highlight of this album is the performance from both drake and future with one never seeming to highly outclass one and both of them maintaining high quality performances throughout is absolutely incredible because of how high the quality ... read more
1 | Digital Dash 3:51 | 79 |
2 | Big Rings 3:37 | 74 |
3 | Live From the Gutter 3:31 | 74 |
4 | Diamonds Dancing 5:14 | 83 |
5 | Scholarships 3:29 | 78 |
6 | Plastic Bag 3:22 | 70 |
7 | I'm the Plug 3:00 | 70 |
8 | Change Locations 3:40 | 66 |
9 | Jumpman 3:25 | 81 |
10 | Future - Jersey 3:08 | 74 |
11 | Drake - 30 for 30 Freestyle 4:13 | 76 |
#21 | / | Pigeons & Planes |
#26 | / | Time Out London |
#30 | / | Stashed |
#50 | / | Complex |
/ | XXL |