Well, that depends entirely on how much you like rapping. But you want to know if has he won the war. And put it this way: save for a few songs, if you deleted “Thank Me Later” from your hard drive, and treated “Take Care” as the genuine follow-up to his mega-successful “So Far Gone” mixtape, it would all make perfect sense. But, luckily for Drake, it sold healthily and he has since earned the right to put out an album that conforms to his ideology. As a result, the waters were muddied and it just didn’t work well enough. He hasn’t gone as far as to disown it, but even a cursory listen highlighted his ambition (“Fireworks”), contrasted with Young Money’s goal (“Fancy”). In the end, they won – obviously – and he had to make numerous concessions. On TML, it was startlingly clear that Drake had one goal and his label had another. Having everyone from top level MC’s to kids biting your style must be somewhat of a headfuck for Drake, and surely the temptation to go left must have crept into his mind when conjuring up “Take Care.” However, that was never going to happen, because his debut, last year’s “Thank Me Later,” wasn’t really his grand vision. Keep your ear to the streets, and watch out for promising young rappers: what really brings home just how much Drake has influenced the rap game is the sheer volume of artists that clearly idolise the T-Dot singer/rapper.
I’m certainly no Drake “Stan” but this year has seen the release of so many rappers that have either displayed a lot of Drizzy in them, or have flat out copied his style. However, bizarrely enough, a certain Canadian MC could almost say the same thing in 2011. “Name a rapper that I ain’t influenced…” Yes, that’s what Nas spit exactly a decade ago, and it was absolutely spot on.
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