Drake’s ‘More Life’ Project: What Can We Expect?
Aubrey Drake Graham has had one of the more stellar runs in pop music in history. Since his release of his groundbreaking mix tape So Far Gone, he’s released a variety of successful, platinum-plus selling projects such as Take Care, Nothing Was The Same, and a collaborative project with fellow star rapper Future titled What A Time To Be Alive. After his latest release, Views, which became one of the biggest-selling albums of the year, Drake has decided to release a “playlist” of new material by him and his OVO collective. He released information on the project in October with this presser.
“I’m off like mixtapes, I want to do a playlist. I want to give you a collection of songs that become the soundtrack to your life, so this More Life: The Playlist. Like I said, dropping in December. All original music from me. You might hear some tunes from the family on there. Just really excited. I had a great tour, I had a great summer. And most people would like go probably take a break, but for me I just want to get right back to it. Be with the people again. Boy Meets World Tour, coming up soon. UK, I’ll be there soon. Big up to UK massive. Everybody—Paris, Amsterdam, Sweden, anywhere we are touching down. But yeah, I just want to celebrate life. More life. That’s what we live by. That’s something we not take for granted.”
In the past year and a half, Drake has battled issues from the hip-hop community on the authenticity of his penmanship on songs in his past, but most specifically from his mix tape If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late. Meek Mill, a previous collaborator with Drake, tweeted out in July of 2015 that Drake doesn’t write his own raps and he and his collective found about it.
Drake would briefly have his own moral victory by responding to Meek Mill in a two-song series of diss records, “Charged Up” and “Back to Back” which in the general consensus, put a damaging hold on Meek Mill’s career. But after his lukewarm response critically to the album Views, Drake is back in limbo, creatively wise in which direction he wants to go via music.
To kick-start his promotional trail for More Life, he released a trio of songs titled “Two Birds, One Stone” “Sneakin” with 21 Savage and “Fake Love.” “Two Birds” starts with Drake in his classic one verse format, getting introspective on the climate of Drug rap helped further curated by Pusha-T. He also spoke on the mental state of fellow rapper Kid Cudi, which caused a brief backlash from fans.
“Sneakin” features 21 Savage, in which Drake creates an edgier record like he has in his past songs from IYRTITL (Energy, Know Yourself, Star67 and No Tellin). Although the sound has garnered a lot of streams and radio play, many have dismissed Drake of attempting to display a tougher image to keep up with the trajectory of rap today.
“Fake Love” is perhaps Drake’s best song of the trio, which relies on his signature melodic rap sound that has helped him generate hits over his career. So far, it has peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been well-received.
So what will Drake’s More Life sound like? If judged from the batch of songs mentioned, introspect, edge, and elite pop songwriting could all become song standards Drake could compose on the playlist. If the material does indeed resemble those three songs, it’s hit or miss whether Drake’s detractors will appreciate the music or critique it as it did with Views. Although it has no official release date, the project is expected to drop very soon.
[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]
