Drake ‘Views’ / Skepta ‘konnichiwa’ – Review

From Drake’s Boy Better Know tattoo to the funny impersonation that opens ‘Shutdown’ and his surprise appearance at a post-Brits Section Boyz show – The Drake/Skepta love in goes from strength to strength. Skepta has clear admiration for one of the biggest stars in Hip Hop and Drake clearly feels the same (he’s even signed a kind of deal with Skepta’s indie label BBK). While they’ve been on the scene for a while now, they have achieved differing levels of success and that has influenced how they’ve approached their most recent albums, both released this month. But whilst there is much to bind them, these albums speak more to their differences than their similarities, with wildly different aims and outcomes.

Where Skepta is riled and fully of energy, Drake seems to be running out of new things to say, and by its very nature, Rap requires that you have a lot to say. On ‘Views’ he sounds lethargic, bored by his own success and totally lacking inspiration. Drake has never been the most wordy of rappers but here he leaves far too much space for sub-standard beats while he croons nonchalantly about nothing much at all. Superficially there isn’t too much to differentiate this from past work but it lacks the fierce spark, the desperation, the hunger and the determination. It is truly Drake by numbers.

That said, ‘Views’ contains a handful of song that are as captivating as anything Drake has made so far. The exotic melody of ‘One Dance’, the mesmerising shuffle of ‘Too Good’, the bubble gum hooks of ‘Hotline Bling’ – these are some of the most memorable moments of the musical year. But spending an hour and a half in Drake’s company is almost inexplicably tiring for something that should be so effortless. The best analogy I can think of is that listening to this twenty track album is akin to being on a long haul flight. You are aware of take off and landing but the time in between becomes indistinct and unusual. The everyday routines and signifiers of time don’t mean anything – it could be morning or night, one hour could be five and you feeling slightly nauseous and uneasy. It usually feels pedantic and archaic to talk about album lengths in the age of playlists and Spotify but in this case there is no choice. It’s simply far too long.

The length is far from the only problem. Drake isn’t interested in redefining himself in the way Kanye has done. Instead he seems more likely to travel down the same path as Nas – churning out variations on the same ideas and themes to diminishing returns. It’s a shame because when he does push the boundaries to see what exists outside of his narrow perspective, the results are fantastic. ‘Feel No Ways’ is a brilliantly simple and untamed moment of exasperation. The distorted, loud beat uncomfortably contrasts with the mushy synth as Drake moans ‘I tried with you’. Of course this increasingly persistent bitterness isn’t his most endearing quality and it’s manifesting itself more and more, not always as successfully as it does here, but on ‘Feel No Ways’ it works well.

‘Redemption’ is the most enjoyable old school Drake number and it’s the one that sent waves of remembrance, of that summer I first heard ‘Take Care’. Those moments are few and far between here. Whilst there are many superficial similarities, the sonic palette is generally much harder and colder than on that generously warm and melodic record. The lyrical tone is less endearing and his particularly unique style of self analysis obviously lacks the same impact it once had. Drake is still one of the most dits inactive and important  artists in Hip Hop, there is enough evidence on ‘Views’ to support that, but if he is to reach the lofty heights of ‘Take Care’ once more, he needs to find that spark, that thing to rally against, a goal.

Skepta has a goal, he has a spark and he’s certainly got things to rally against. Whilst ‘konnichiwa’ is not necessarily an explicitly political album, Skepta does crusade against everyday prejudices and injustices in a way that engages the youth, just as  Bob Dylan, The Clash or Billy Bragg once did. Unlike Drake, Skepta’s rise to prominence has been a long and unusual one. For the past ten years he’s been on the slow boil, picking up a loyal and dedicated fan following and in the process he became one of the few grime artists to make a name for himself outside the scene. He’s been canny in his use of social media and whilst his attention seeking antics have sometimes left a bitter after taste (soft porn music videos certainly garnered the wrong type of attention) he’s been successful in building anticipation for this, his breakthrough record, four years in he making.

It helps that Grime is having something of a second wind. Shout outs from Kanye and Drake have certainly helped but the scene’s rising stars – JME, Stormzy, J Hus, Section Boyz – have done plenty to make their own path. Of the bunch, Skepta is hardly the most eloquent, sophisticated or technically gifted. He holds a simple and steady flow, steers clear of alliterative language, half rhymes and metaphors and rarely uses flowery imagery past the odd blunt simile. Compared to big stars like Kanye and Kendrick he is positively simplistic but this serves his purpose as a politically motivated punk.

The hooks on ‘konnichiwa’ come thick and fast, which is the best thing about the record. It’s so enjoyable from start to finish, a complete contrast to the heavy, dark and long winded atmosphere of ‘Views’. In particular, the stretch that runs from ‘Numbers’ through to ‘That’s Not Me’ is one of the most impressive in the recent history of rap. These songs are filled with unusual samples, memorable bars and catchy choruses. His ear for a pop hook is as finely tuned as Kanye’s in 2005 but he never panders to popular taste in the way that unfortunately Dizze Rascal and Wiley started to do. He knows how to turn an obscure Queens of the Stone Age sample In to a menacing backdrop for some of the most brilliant rhymes I’ve heard in yonks on the ridiculously amazing ‘Man’.

One of the refreshing things about ‘Konitchiwa’ Is that Skepta doesn’t resort to indefensible insults and he never uses profanity as a crutch. He rarely refers to bitches and niggas unless it serves a clear purpose and his vocabulary, whilst sometimes crude, is thoughtful throughout. Skepta may not be the most technically talented rapper on the planet and ‘konnichiwa’ lacks the gravitas of the great Hip Hop albums of recent times, but Skepta has persevered and taken his time to build an album that is crammed with intelligence, personality and attitude. Compared to the overlong and overstuffed ‘Views’ it overflows with creativity and shows fine attention to detail. After years doing solid work in the shadows, Skepta is finally getting his due.

Drake ‘Views’ – 6/10

Skepta ‘Konichiwa’ – 8/10

Drake ‘Nothing Was the Same’ – Review

‘Tuscan Leather’ is the most ecstatic song Drake has ever recorded – 6 minutes of delirious beat and samples that are twisted to make it sound like a demented Kanye West production from a decade ago. And it’s dripping with the most unconvincing bravado you can imagine. ‘Comin off the last record, I’m getting 20 million off the record, just off these records, nigga that’s a record.’ As an opening gambit it’s unexpected – Since when has anyone listened to Drake to hear cheap puns and cheaper vanity? ‘I could go an hour on this beat’ – You get the feeling he tried. Luckily about half way through the song things start to unravel in the best possible sense. ‘Not even talking to Nicki, communication is breaking, I dropped the ball on some personal shit, I need to embrace it. I’m honest, I make mistakes, and I’ll be the second to admit it.’ This is more like the Drake we’ve come to expect; funny, self-deprecating, revealing and unflinchingly honest. Although he gets off to a slightly unconvincing start, by the end of ‘Tuscan Leather’, the album’s opening track, he’s completely won you over. It alerts you to the notion that this is his most conflicted album yet.

‘Nothing Was the Same’ is more complicated than ‘Take Care’, although the links with that record are clear. Nothing IS the same exactly, but it’s certainly not a complete reinvention. Drake still places sincerity alongside insincerity and smack-talk alongside heart-talk. He’s not wholly convincing in either department for that reason – he’s too sweet-natured to give good smack talk and he’s too vain and antagonistic to give good heart talk. He’s a rapper with a poet’s heart or a poet with a rapper’s swag. The beauty is that he doesn’t sound at home anywhere. ‘Somewhere between psychotic and iconic – somewhere between I want it and I got it – somewhere between a mistress and commitment’ as he puts it. He’s a unique conundrum in the hip hop community. Utterly relatable – a man who expresses ancient thoughts on love and loss in 21st century Tweet sized sound bites. The writer he reminds me most of is Alex Turner, another dude who writes in memorable, brief fragments rather than extended narratives. Like Turner, Drake is also fond of details; these tunes are dripping with proper nouns, to the point where we can name a dozen of the women who have come in and out of Drake’s life. ‘The one I needed was Courtney from Hooters on Peaches, I’ve always been feeling like she was the piece to complete me. Now she’s engaged to be married.’ Drake wallows in regret all over the record, but we only get glimpses like this here and there. It’s clear that all the bravado is there to compensate for his honesty. Unsurprisingly his swag is merely a disguise for a wounded soul.

Musically the album’s a lot less complicated, although it’s a more difficult listen that the more memorable ‘Take Care’. Drake’s never really been about ear worms – his melodies are often inane and tuneless, his hooks often laughably derivative (see ‘Started From the Bottom’) but instead the music washes over you and creates atmosphere like the best mood records do. Drake is equally fond of old collaborators and new collaborators; Noah Shebib is still there providing the production, and still doing an excellent job of combining post ‘808s and Heartbreaks’ emo with a more muscular beat palate. The first half of the album is a lot tougher and more driven than 90% of ‘Take Care’. It’s the kind of material I expected a superstar in Drake’s league to make before I actually heard his music. As on ‘Take Care’ Drizzy also recruits young British talent to add some innovation. Beat maker in demand Hudson Mohawke adds a ‘Bad’ era Michael Jackson flavour to ‘Contact’ whilst Sampha contributes the most soul stirring moment on the album with his impassioned vocals on ‘Too Much’.

Despite being a fairly progressive hip hop album in many ways, ‘Nothing was the Same’ still feels unfortunately regressive when it comes to terminology, proving some things will never change. Women are still ‘bitches’ or ‘pussy’, men are still ‘niggas’ and the F word is thrown around in a lazy manner designed to fill syllables. For someone with such a command of language Drake is still prone to littering his songs with these boring, offensive clichés. For a man who wears his sensitivity as a medal around his neck along with his other chains, Drake seems to be as insensitive as most other contemporary rappers when it comes to labeling. The album falls into the other predictable hip hop trap of being too long – although in fairness it isn’t anywhere near as indulgent as ‘Take Care’ or many other big hip-hop releases of the last decade.

‘I wanna take it deeper than money, pussy, vacation, and influence a generation lacking in patience. I’ve been dealing with my dad, speaking of lack of patience…’ In this statement we are led back to that central contradiction at the heart of Drake’s records. This is a line brimming with ambition; Drake wants to ‘influence a generation’, he wants to ‘connect’, he still wants ‘money, pussy, vacation’ but he also wants to talk about his dad. Here we see in an instant just how hungry Drake is, not to mention how conflicted he is. This is far from a perfect album but then Drake is far from a perfect human being – he’s often hilariously un-self aware, hypocritical, false and vain. But occasionally he’s revolatory. And it’s still a thrill to hear him slur ‘muthafuckers never loved me.’ He’s got that dirty allure. That’s the beautiful contradiction. Drake’s been exploring this anxiety for a while now and you get the feeling he’ll never truly feel at home anywhere – which suits me just fine.

8.5/10