Drake tones down expectations with a playlist, not an album
Canadian chart-topper loosens the reins and follows his brooding 2016 release Views with More Life, a compilation of 22 songs from various artists that frees the rapper/singer to present different styles – and share the spotlight
But if designations can seem increasingly irrelevant for a superstar at his level – and at a moment when the shift to digital streaming is already turning everything into context-free clouds of ones and zeroes – that doesn’t mean labels are without meaning for Drake.
In 2015, he presented the chest-beating If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late as a mixtape, proudly aligning himself with hip hop’s tradition of rushed-to-market trash talk. Yet last year’s Views was clearly billed as an album, with all the structure and ambition that term has historically evoked. (Both efforts debuted at No 1, the latter moving more than a million units in its first week.)
Now Drake is back with More Life, a collection of 22 songs that he’s referring to as a playlist and which premiered last weekend on his Apple Music radio show before becoming available to stream and download.
So what’s he telling us with this latest exercise in taxonomy? For starters, he might be managing expectations.