More Drake, 'More Life'

Arguably modern day hip-hop’s biggest star, Drake just gave his super-loyal fanbase a long-awaited treat by adding a new project to his so-far impressive catalog. ‘More Life’ was released on March 28, 2017 by OVO Sound, Young Money Entertainment, Cash Money Records, and Republic Records. But this isn’t an album. This isn’t an EP, and this isn’t even a mixtape. It’s a “playlist,” or at least that’s what Drake is calling it.

Led by urban radio hit-single “Fake Love,” which was released last October, the playlist features a total of 22 tracks. Guest spots from PARTYNEXTDOOR (you guessed it), 2 Chainz, Sampha, Quavo, Travis Scott, Kanye West, Black Coffee, Jorja Smith, as well as Young Thug and British rapper Giggs, who both appear twice.

On the commercial side, ‘More Life’ broke streaming records on both Spotify and Apple Music, with the tracks from the playlist accumulating a total of 61.3 million streams in one day on Spotify and 89.9 million streams on Apple Music on the day of its release.

Personally, I’m glad that Drake waited at least almost a full year before putting out another project, but quite honestly, he could have waited another month or two. ‘Views,’ his last full-length album, was released last April, and is not even a year old yet. However, Drake is an artist that is always working and always making new music, so for him, he probably wanted to release it sooner. Nevertheless, I am glad he waited at least as long as he did. And with the timing of the release, these songs will probably be in rotation for the remainder of 2017. ‘Views’ had a pretty long tracklist as well (most of Drake’s projects do, actually), and as a listener it can become overwhelming when an artist gives us more music than we can handle at once. 11 months probably seems like years for Future fans though, as he just put out two back to back albums a week apart.

My biggest critique of the playlist is it’s length. 22 songs in my opinion is too long for ANY genre and ANY project: album, mixtape, or EP. It’s quite a lot to take in, and it sometimes turns you off unless you are a huge fan. Another critique is that while these tracks do sequence into each other a lot more smoother than ‘Views’ did, Drake still struggles when it comes to putting a cohesive body of work together. He always has great songs, but in terrible sequencing (see: ‘Take Care’), or just too much going on at the same time.

On a more positive note, I love watching Drake grow and improve as an artist. He gets more and more creative with every release, and his versatility is what’s separated him from other big mainstream acts. He has the effortless ability to spit fire on a trap banger and then turn around and do a record in dancehall or Afrobeat (like he does on ‘More Life’), and it doesn’t sound contrived. I just wish he found a better way to tie his versatility altogether. He’s getting closer, but I think the first step would be to stop trying to put all your latest great songs on one big project. Save some gems for the future to condense the length of these projects and hopefully improve the overall structure and quality.

My favorite tracks from ‘More Life’ so far include: “Gyalchester,” “Free Smoke,” “4422,” “Sacrifices” and “Passionfruit.”

What did you think of ‘More Life?’