Album Review: Drake- Nothing Was The Same


By the time you reach the iTunes bonus track on Nothing Was The Same, Drake pretty much sums up what he spent the last hour iterating—“Got everything, I got everything. I cannot complain…I don’t even know much I really made. I forgot. It’s a lot.”

But he does complain. Because Drake also spends a bulk of Nothing Was The Same discussing just how fucking hard it is to be so incredibly successful. At no point in my life will I ever have SO much money that I don’t even know exactly how much I have. But this is Drake’s charmed life. On his debut EP, So Far Gone, released four years ago, he crooned, “I just wanna be successful.” The truth is, by the time the EP was released, everyone had spent the summer of 2009 jamming out to the single “Best I Ever Had”—still quotable in it’s lyrics about how Drake will make that pussy whistle “like the ‘Andy Griffith’ theme song.” He was successful, right out of the gate.

Between 2009 and 2010, I’m not sure what happened for me, but by the time Drake’s proper debut LP, Thank Me Later, dropped, I was kind of like, “Eh, do I have energy to give a shit about this?” The answer was I didn’t. And by the time the follow up, 2011’s Take Care was released, I gave even less shits. To my knowledge, I haven’t actually heard anything off of either of those records.

But now here we are in 2013. And Drizzy Drake has returned and is blessing us with his third full-length album—the lengthy, dramatic, emotional, self-aggrandizing Nothing Was The Same.

At times, Drake’s lyrics read like pages of his journal, or at least, entries from a rich kid’s Xanga page. When he’s not going into his love of finer things like designer clothing, or how incredibly difficult his life of fame and fortune is, he often wanders into territory where he discusses his inability to maintain relationships with women—even women who are just his friend—“Not even talkin’ to Nicki, communication is breakin.’ I dropped the ball on some personal shit, I need to embrace it. I’m honest, I make mistakes, I’d be the second to admit it.,” he confesses on the first track of the album, “Tuscan Leather,” a reference to the incredibly expensive, possibly cocaine scented cologne by luxury designer and preferred name to drop by rappers, Tom Ford.

Nothing Was The Same is incredibly self-aware—“How much time is this ni**a spendin’ on the intro?” Drake asks on the very same song. To answer your own question: six minutes and change. It’s one of many seemingly self-indulgent tracks on the record—the track, produced by Noah “40” Shebib, switches gears like three times, while all the while a heavily processed, reversed, and sped up sample of “I Have Nothing” by Whitney Houston carries on in the distance.

It seems hard to fathom that someone who flaunts their success so openly that Drake came from humble beginnings—his father was incarnated for a time, his mother incredibly poor. His earnings from being on Canadian Television’s “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” claims to have netted him less than a teacher’s salary. A rags to riches story seems appropriate for a debut album, or even a second album, but by the third album, where your opening lyric is about making $20 million dollars off your previous LP, you maybe shouldn’t have a song called “Started From The Bottom.”

The first single from Nothing Was The Same, “Started From The Bottom” was released way back when, in the dark ages of February, when the slow roll out for this record began. It’s a short song (less than three minutes) and it relies heavily on the refrain that is barked—“Started from the bottom now we’re here. Started from the bottom now my whole team’s fucking here.” It’s irritating, but catchy, and I haven’t been able to break myself of thinking about those lyrics since I heard the song earlier this week.

Drake is a “double threat” when it comes to music because he can both rap AND croon. Predominately, it seems like he chooses to rap on Nothing Was The Same—occasionally he chooses both, like on “Own It,” and occasionally he chooses to croon his heart out, like on the single “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” which is a text book example of Drake’s pop sensibilities.

Because Drake is a marquee name, big budget artist, this is less of a “hip-hop” or even an “R&B” record, and more of a straight up “pop” record. Sure there are times where Drizzy wants to be taken seriously as an artist, and makes something artistic sounding, but there is on denying how catchy a song like “Hold On, We’re Going Home” is. Allegedly channeling a Quincy Jones-era Michael Jackson vibe, “Hold On” is lyrically insipid and incredibly simple, and that’s precisely why it works as a pop song in the year 2013.

A running theme throughout the album, aside from money, is Drake’s strict “no new friends” policy—something that is outlined in a song aptly titled “No New Friends,” released earlier this year by DJ Khaled, also featuring Rick Ross and Drake’s boss Lil’ Wayne. And incase you were wondering what exactly that means, the unintentionally hilarious annotation at Rap Genius elaborates that it’s pretty much what you’d think:

“As noted in his platinum certified single “Started From The Bottom,” Drake still fucks with is friends that were there from day one and doesn’t plan on making any more friends.”

Which is why on the aforementioned “Stared From The Bottom,” Drake stresses, “No new ni**as, Ni**a we don’t feel that. Fuck a fake friend, where your real friends at?

Drake is also incredibly preoccupied with the 90’s—referring to them as “90’s fantasies.” He’s only three years younger than me, so his knowledge of the 1990’s is not that far off base, but seems a little inauthentic. Name dropping “The Fresh Prince,” slight nods to Mobb Deep, and completely biting an entire verse from Mase, Drake focuses primarily on the Wu-Tang Can—one of the 1990’s most incredible rises and falls in hip hop.  Sampling the Wu’s “It’s Yourz,” Drake’s “Wu Tang Forever” has literally nothing to do with the Wu Tang Clan at all, making the title seem like a non sequitur, and the track itself has the feel of an unfinished sketch.

Overall, Nothing Was The Same is not groundbreaking. Nor do I believe it was ever intended to be. At times Drake’s wordplay is clever (“Degenerates, but even Ellen love our shit”) and even the flossing and aggrandizing can be so boastful that it’s cause for double take (“Fuck going platinum. I just looked at my wrist and its already platinum.”) I went into this record not really knowing what to expect. I figured that it would not be a life changing record, and I figured it would not convert me to a Drake fan, running out to buy this the day of release. As with so many contemporary hip-hop artists, the endless parade of lyrics about mo’ money and mo’ problems gets a little tiring.

From a production aspect, there are some memorable beats, which is something I can’t say for every hip-hop record released in recent memory. And even when it’s less of a croony R&B joint, Drake knows how to write a catchy hook, so even if you don’t want to be saying “started from the bottom now my whole team’s fucking here,” to yourself all day, you will be.

He’s criticized as being the “softest in the game,” and certainly Drake would never put out a record about shooting people or making crack rock in his kitchen. No one would take him seriously if he did. But he should be given credit for the kind of unfathomable crossover success he’s had from day one—across the board from indie kids to Top 40 listeners, Drake has a wide audience, and not every artist, from any genre, can say that, so while the bragging gets old, perhaps he deserves to do it.