And if he's never going to get the same respect that someone like Chance the Rapper gets, making records as self-pitying and self-serving as Views isn't going to do much to further Drake's career artistically, either. Drake has not only arrived, he's taken over.
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The track, like so many others made up of over-blown boasts, seems to be fighting a battle that was won long ago. Blige sample running through the track, but stumbles when Drake name drops Katy Perry and brags about wrecking marriages. A few other tracks connect, like the almost light-hearted "Feel No Ways," which makes good use of a stuttering Malcolm McLaren sample or, of course, the hugely catchy hit song "Hotline Bling." The nostalgic "Weston Road Flows" comes close, with the great Mary J. Still, these poppy moments feature Drake as the wounded lover, being treated poorly yet again. Of the songs that stand out, his uptempo, Caribbean-flavored duet with Rihanna ("Too Good") is the most enjoyable "One Dance," another song with a Jamaican dancehall feel, is another fun track. No matter how ably the production casts his raps and ballads in the best possible light, no matter how well the frequent use of chopped and swirled samples from '90s R&B songs fit in the mix, no matter that the occasional song rises up from the narrative and makes a splash, the album is a meandering, dreary rehash of what Drake has done before in much better fashion. Frankly, it's become as boring and annoying as a needle stuck in a groove. He's already delved deeply into his insecurities, lambasted all his exes, and displayed his fierce self-pride, never shying away from telling everyone exactly where he started and how far he's come. As before, he casts himself as both the melancholy bachelor looking out over the city from his penthouse manor, and the criminally underrated rap genius demanding his due, and it's one album too many for both personas. 2016's Views is another in a string of dour transmissions from the dark night of Drake's soul. For all intents and purposes, the Drake of Views is the same one we got on If You’re Reading This and What a Time, but if his previous proper album ( Nothing Was the Same) foretold anything, it’s that the man peering down from CN Tower sees things differently than the rest of us.Since the release of his last non-mixtape/non-collaboration album in 2013, Drake has solidified his position as a pop music icon, scaling the charts, dominating gossip columns, and generally living the good life. Maybe the the most affecting acknowledgement to this end is the fact that “Hotline Bling”, a strong contender for 2015 song of the summer, was such an afterthought by the time Views was released that it appears here as a bonus track.
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He isn’t too much for the world, though, ruminating on his position as one of music’s biggest names-and those who’d rather he wasn’t-on songs like “Still Here”, “Hype” and “Grammys”. There are references here to specific people (“Redemption”), places (“Weston Road Flows”) and experiences (“Views”), along with nods to the influence of the city’s Caribbean population on “With You”, “Controlla” and “Too Good” (which just happens to feature Rihanna). “Just to show the city what it takes to be alive for it.” Drake’s presence eclipsed Toronto just about as soon as So Far Gone dropped, but the city-and what it thinks of him-was never far from his mind. “I made a decision last night that I would die for it,” Drake raps on “9”. Views, which followed two wildly successful projects in 2015 that he’d branded as mixtapes- If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and the Future collab What a Time to Be Alive-would confirm him as both, his penchant for immaculate songwriting still fully intact and the pressures of existing as the most popular voice in rap, as well as his hometown’s most successful export, weighing heavy on his mind.
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He looks less like the superhero he’d made himself into over the course of a roughly six-year rise as singer-songwriter extraordinaire and more like a troubled monarch. On the cover of his fourth studio album Views, Drake looks down from atop Toronto’s CN Tower, paying homage to the city’s notoriously frigid winter temperatures in a heavyweight shearling coat and high-cut boots.