I'm actually a big fan of Drake's music. Why does he attract a particularly strong brand of hate? There are a few reasons:
1. He was well-off but occasionally tries to front as though he came up rough to fit in with the "street hip-hop" persona. Drake grew up in a nice part of Toronto with the Jewish side of his family and wanted for little, so this gets to people. We all know Drake never started from anything close to a legitimate "bottom", and thus we get a little annoyed when he claims to have done so:
2. Just as he has shown a tendency to try and claim he came up rougher than he has, Drake is also known to claim more toughness than we know he really possesses. He will occasionally speak in a manner designed to associate him with aggressive/violent behavior even though we know he's got nothing to do with any of that and never has had anything to do with that in his life (which, again, was spent primarily in well-to-do Toronto suburbs). A prime example of this was seen in a particular verse of his hit single "Headlines":
In this verse Drake claims to be somewhat of a mobster while also threatening violence, implying that folks should want few problems with him because if they have them "someone will catch a body". We all know Drake is not a mobster/gang kingpin capable of calling in murders. Then he talks about dealing with friends going to prison, another problem Drake is unlikely to have ever dealt with.
I liked Headlines quite a bit, but I see where people are coming from with this critique. it doesn't seem genuine.
3. He occasionally says some verthat women love, but also in his more mainstream club hits. A prime example of this is "No New Friends":
The whole idea of the song is that Drake has his friends and doesn't want to meet anyone new. This is reminiscent of the kind of thing a bunch of cliquey 6th grade girls might run around saying to their classmates in order to isolate girls they don't like and/or make themselves feel more important than they are. Most men are open to meeting cool new people. Girls are the ones who tend to be associated with the kind of bitchy/cliquey behavior exhibited in the lyrics of "No New Friends".
Again, I liked the song (and loved Drake's verse in it), but I concede that it had a feminine cliquish energy to it and understand the critiques. Charlagmagne the God sums up the issue very well in this video:
In summary, as I've been saying, I like Drake. He makes consistently good music, a lot of which has resonated with me on a personal level. Of course, I have noticed that my favorite songs of his (ex: Fear, Dreams Money Can Buy, Look What You've Done) aren't his most popular, and that isn't a coincidence. In his most popular songs, Drake plays to an image that sells and he's very good at it. This earns him some enemies, but it earns him even more money.
1. He was well-off but occasionally tries to front as though he came up rough to fit in with the "street hip-hop" persona. Drake grew up in a nice part of Toronto with the Jewish side of his family and wanted for little, so this gets to people. We all know Drake never started from anything close to a legitimate "bottom", and thus we get a little annoyed when he claims to have done so:
2. Just as he has shown a tendency to try and claim he came up rougher than he has, Drake is also known to claim more toughness than we know he really possesses. He will occasionally speak in a manner designed to associate him with aggressive/violent behavior even though we know he's got nothing to do with any of that and never has had anything to do with that in his life (which, again, was spent primarily in well-to-do Toronto suburbs). A prime example of this was seen in a particular verse of his hit single "Headlines":
Quote:Quote:
Tuck my napkin in my shirt, cause I'm just mobbin like that
You know good and well that you don't want a problem like that
You gone make someone around me catch a body like that
No, don't do it, please don't do it
Cause one of us goes in, then we all go through it
In this verse Drake claims to be somewhat of a mobster while also threatening violence, implying that folks should want few problems with him because if they have them "someone will catch a body". We all know Drake is not a mobster/gang kingpin capable of calling in murders. Then he talks about dealing with friends going to prison, another problem Drake is unlikely to have ever dealt with.
I liked Headlines quite a bit, but I see where people are coming from with this critique. it doesn't seem genuine.
3. He occasionally says some verthat women love, but also in his more mainstream club hits. A prime example of this is "No New Friends":
The whole idea of the song is that Drake has his friends and doesn't want to meet anyone new. This is reminiscent of the kind of thing a bunch of cliquey 6th grade girls might run around saying to their classmates in order to isolate girls they don't like and/or make themselves feel more important than they are. Most men are open to meeting cool new people. Girls are the ones who tend to be associated with the kind of bitchy/cliquey behavior exhibited in the lyrics of "No New Friends".
Again, I liked the song (and loved Drake's verse in it), but I concede that it had a feminine cliquish energy to it and understand the critiques. Charlagmagne the God sums up the issue very well in this video:
In summary, as I've been saying, I like Drake. He makes consistently good music, a lot of which has resonated with me on a personal level. Of course, I have noticed that my favorite songs of his (ex: Fear, Dreams Money Can Buy, Look What You've Done) aren't his most popular, and that isn't a coincidence. In his most popular songs, Drake plays to an image that sells and he's very good at it. This earns him some enemies, but it earns him even more money.
Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.