REVIEW: Thank Me Later By Drake

1.5 stars.

Aubrey Graham aka Drake, shot his way to musical fame pretty quickly after the release of his acclaimed mixtape So Far Gone and subsequent signing to Young Money records. However, despite the hype Thank Me Later generated before its release, cookie cutter lyrics and bland production make for an unmemorable listen.

Collaborators Noah "40" Shebib and Boi-1da handle the majority of production by helping to craft 10 of the album’s 14 downbeat tracks. Admittedly this works in terms of consistency and its a nice change to see something different from the usual who’s who of producers, but this also seems to help create another problem. No true standout tracks.

Songs like Fancy and Miss Me manage to scrape by mainly thanks to surprisingly good guest spots from Lil Wayne and T.I. But from the whiny Show Me A Good Time to the boring Thank Me Now, you won’t hear anything close to the quality of Drake’s mixtape tracks such as Dj Screw tribute November 18th or Peter, Bjorn and John collaboration Let’s Call It Off.

Lyrically this is about as uninspired as it gets. Drake’s either rapping about his glamorous life or boring the listener with cheesy retellings of numerous ‘complicated’ relationships. These songs sound like they should serve as a soundtrack to his former teen television show Degrassi.

A particularly bad moment occurs when Drake name-drops Wu Tang Clan and compares himself to the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard with the line ‘I’m the Osiris of this sh*t’. A safe teen-rap sensation comparing himself to a charismatic crack addict couldn’t be further from the truth.

Drake also takes the unique punch-line flow rapper Big Sean pioneered on tracks like Supa Dupa Flow to new lows with cringe inducing lines including: ‘I’ve got these new rappers nervous, prom night’, ‘this time I’m really going off, fireworks,’ or ‘we shut it down, Onyx’.

And don’t even get me started on Drake’s auto-tuned singing. Yuck.

Simply put Thank Me Later is not pop enough for pop fans and not rap enough for rap fans, instead it sits somewhere awkwardly in the middle and Drake doesn’t seem to have the charisma to pull off either this time around.

Review by Jimmy Ness.