Mar 22, 2017 Didn't really proofread, just wanted to get it out / sick of looking at it. feedback etc. More Life: Neo-Mafioso Rap? “Ayo f-ck this n-gga b. First off…this n-gga gotta stop wit this lonely mobster image he tryin to portray these days yo. This n-gga said this s--- was bout him feelin like he a king tho. Son said “I used to stare at this world through a glass window and, like, two to three years later, I become a king in that world. That’s who’s sitting on that cover…” They give this n-gga a muthafuckin goblet n a table for one witta candle n a bronze owl n now he runnin rap? N-gga ya respect from ya peers is as deep as the success you got in the mainstream. Aint nobody in rap lookin up to you like that cos you dope. Your success is whats dope to these n-ggas son. King tho? F-ck outta here b.” - Big Ghostface Even I must admit that Take Care album cover seems extremely corny especially so early in Drake’s career. What had Drake accomplished up to this point to be portraying himself as this mafioso? He was still being clowned as a victim of Rick Murray, he still rapped with those awful Young Money punchlines, and then there’s that whole obsessed with the deceased Aaliyah thing. “Dear Dana, I’ve never lost a parent, a friend, or a lover but I will never forget this day for the rest of my life. I remember getting the news that you had passed and it connected with my heart like a clean shot from Muhammad Ali. I was crushed. Not only was I one of your biggest fans but I was truly in love with you. I loved the way you carried yourself, the way you dressed, the confidence with which you addressed passion and relationships in your music. I said to myself that even if we never met, I wanted a woman in my life just like you. I am pained that we will never get to connect now that music ended up being my career path. But you should know, we all listen to you everyday and we remain inspired and moved by all that you’ve given the world. I hope I make the right life choices so I can end up in heaven where I know you rest your head. I’ll continue to make music in your honor until the day we finally meet. Dinner’s on me! Love you always and forever, Drake” How could such joke be seen as a respectable artist much less an international superstar? At some point after the release of Take Care, Drake realized that he needed to reinvent himself as an artist. Young Money slowly drifted apart and Drake went to his roots (R.I.P. Drake from Dallas). He grabbed his life long friends and headed back to Canada. Fast forward to 2017; Drake is the biggest male artist in the world. At the AMA’s that lonely mobster image seems a lot more prevalent. We’ve gone from resembling models in Macy’s catalogs to a full on Don with Blue tinted lenses. On More Life the subject matter on the surface is everything we’ve heard before; failed relationships, subliminal shots, and the fear of failure. Yet now everything seems more grand, egotistical, and even has realistic glimpses into the psychological pressures that stem from the duality of being the number one rapper as well as the number one target (whatever that means in this era). What changed is how cold and calculated Drake has become as a entertainment mogul and him willingly deciding to keep everything in his OVO Family is a business venture only true Don’s recognize. Free Smoke and it’s opening Hiatus Kaiyote sample is comparable to the famous night club scene in Goodfellas where Henry Hill takes Karen on their first real date. The mere statement of being in such a classy place and being known because of how powerful a man is reveals the luxurious and rarely attainable side of organized crime. In More Life’s case, when the beat changes on Free Smoke, Drake is pulling back the curtain on the lavish lifestyle. It comes off as a challenge to any person who thinks they can take his crown. The second verse lets listeners into an average Tuesday for Drake. “Dom Rosé toast Hidden Hills where I post I start my day slow Silk pajamas when I wake, though Miraval to the face, though I drunk text J-Lo Old number, so it bounce back” It is a full fledged “This is what it’s like to be at the top and I know you wish you were me.” Drake’s tough guy persona has been in question for years, but a true mastermind never gets his hands dirty. That’s what he has Baka for. A modern day Luca Brasi, who Drake rides for despite questionable criminal charges. More Life starts exactly how the listener expects. An immense amount of superficial raps from a man who has nothing to lose because he has it all. Then it ends. He reverts back to a more familiar voice. The grime accent is gone. “Passionate from miles away Passive with the things you say Passin' up on my old ways I can't blame you, no, no” It’s easy to dismiss Passionfruit as another dance hall track about a girl, but I believe there to be more. 40 re-teams with Drake on Jorja Interlude and seemingly blends the new track with Doing It Wrong from Drake’s sophomore album. Take Care features many tracks that place Drake in a before fame form. It was honest and unforgiving, but many struggled to take him seriously as a rap artist. None of efforts up until this point have matched the emotional impact of Take Care due to a consistent need to keep striving for success and messing with the formula. Drake the type of n-gga memes die out. He works out, he grows a beard, and creates waves rather than riding them. In doing so, Drake drifted away from who he was in order to pursue his dream of being the most known artist in the world. Why go through all this trouble? Similar to the mobster Tony Soprano, Drake had father issues. “When I ask him about his dad, his voice tightens, and he looks away. "Me and my dad are friends. We’re cool. I’ll never be disappointed again, because I don’t expect anything anymore from him. I just let him exist, and that’s how we get along. We laugh. We have drinks together. But I spent too many nights looking by the window, seeing if the car was going to pull up. And the car never came." http://www.gq.com/story/drake-interview-gq-april-2012 More Life’s cover features a picture of Drake’s father whose lack of presence in Drake’s early years may have drove him to this hunt of unatainbale success. Drake has greatly eclipsed his father in the field as music just as Tony Soprano eclipsed his in organized crime. Madiba Riddim masks his anxiety with uptempo production hoping to return to a previous form of himself. “I’ve seen man turn fool for the money / One too many times”. Views, being the commercial juggernaut that it was is considered a misstep by core fans and critics alike. An album that was hyped up to be the definitive project of his career opted for singles that ditched rapping and would control the charts. Views was stretched to twenty tracks and released not long after the inclusion of streams in record sales. The albums rollout was masterfully calculated and took “dumbing down for the audience to double my dollars” to a level never seen in rap before. The reckless vulnerability exposed during the first nine tracks on More Life But at the top you can never let your guard down. Gyalchester refreshes the appearance of the rapper. It’s constrained and dismissive performance boasts confidence of his own invincibility even going as far as mentioning the exposoal of his abdomen on the refrain: “Hermès link, ice-blue mink Tat on my ribs like I do not know what permanent is” “40 got house on the lake, I ain't know we had a lake” In season 6 of The Sopranos, Tony journeys through a coma induced “what if? scenario. He isn’t involved with the mafia, he doesn’t cheat on his wife, and he is a respectable father. This version of him is everything he might have been if he had not followed in his father’s footsteps into organized crime. Teenage Fever’s lyrics reek of optimism from a seemingly younger Drake. He’s met someone new and everything finally feels right. Then the lowered pitch of Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love” hits. “If you had my love And I gave you all my trust would you comfort me? The optimism of the track immediately collapses under the rhetorical questions the refrain poses. It’s haunting. Maybe if he wasn’t who he was Drake could make a relationship like that work, but it just isn’t who he is. He is calculated in not only business, but in nature and any proper emotional ties would cloud his judgement. Was his pursuit to the top the right choice? Could he have the power AND the emotional attachment? Is the easy way the right away? It’s not, to him at least. KMT is Drake realizing just how good he is at what he does. He is essentially spilling all of his qualifications and why he is and is rightfully so the leader of rap in 2017. “Love is just not in my plans Not even takin' a chance Studio right in my yard I'm doin' ten in a week How long I been on this streak? Dream about work in my sleep” Many thought Tony Soprano was becoming psychologically weak or was too out of shape. This is what happens right after Tony gets out his coma. Drake can be accused of using writers and get away with it. Drake can take your flow because he can. He can take your songs because he can (sorry PARTY). He can hop on whatever song he wants whenever he wants, because he can. His mentality is ruthless and often criticized for being a vulture, but it’s never enough to stop the support he receives from fellow artists and fans. Obligatory curb stomping scene. “I don't care what society thinks. They're nothing anyway. They're no better than me. Out there you just have to fit into a pattern that somebody's already laid out for you. Life we live, you have to set your own patterns, your own ideals. You have to handle the whole job yourself.” And during this alienation that consisted of burning bridges with affiliates to make it to the top did he lose you? As a lover? As a friend? As a fan? The falling out between The Weeknd in Drake mostly comes down to speculation (I’m sure Drake was in the wrong). “If we not on the charts, my XO n----s eatin' Fifty-two consecutive weekends, shout out to Weeknd” The friendship is a product of each wanting something different and although they are relatively in similar lanes it can’t really work between the two. Artie and Tony were friends and because they wanted something else their relationship won’t ever be the same. The album closes on the uncertainty of the rapper’s future. On Do Not Disturb he raps: “Who knows where I end up when that s--- gets old? Maybe it never gets old and that's just how it goes.” He’s exactly where he wants to be and yet he still does not seem satisfied. “Behind closed doors, a lot of 6 God worshipping Done talk now, 'cause there's other s--- that's concernin' me There's real ones around me I want to make sure they learn from me” Will Drake be seen as a Vito Corleone, willing to keep everything in line for the people he loves? “I’ll probably self-destruct if I ever lose, but I never do.” Or will his position at the top cause a downward spiral similar to Michael and yearning for a life he left behind?
Mar 22, 2017 And I thought I was verbose. Furthermore, I stopped reading after "Take Care" slander. It's been 5 years. Let it go. Oh, and get a g.d. hearing aid, ya young deaf geezer.
Mar 22, 2017 Forgot to put a paragraph about how big it was to have such a psychological aspect in The Sopranos.
Mar 22, 2017 @Dew dont forget the most mafia birthday ever. the whores, his mother, his father, all black everything, the owl
Mar 22, 2017 im going all out on my 30th birthday btw. 2025 gonna f--- some s--- up @ovofams will be invited.
Mar 22, 2017 Idk, I see Drake as a general bravado rapper more like Big Daddy Kane than Kool G's lineage. He definitely borrows from mafioso a lot less than guys like Ross. When he does, it's pretty cringe. "Keep a blade with me when I go to check a b----" and such. It's not a poorly written article. I just think the titular premise and comparisons to Godfather/Sopranos are a bit weak. This is coming from somebody who thinks Drake's ego raps are his best stuff btw.
Mar 22, 2017 I'm kinda fucken mad you compared one of my favourite movies and my absolute favourite TV show to this garbage
Mar 22, 2017 I think a re-title would do this thing wonders. Ease back the expectations of having to argue he's recreating the wheel of mafioso rap. I had a knee jerk reaction to that. Not a good one lol.
Mar 22, 2017 i think its more of the value systems/ethics he tries to portray in his music: 1. Family/Close friends 2. Money/Success 3. Sex/Girls which is pretty similar to the traditional values in the mafia, more so than actually being tough, big bravado/selling s--- etc
Mar 22, 2017 And the fact that you call a bunch of Views throwaways "Neo-Mafiaso" rap is even more ironic
Mar 22, 2017 Those are just very general concepts that could apply to anything when missing the very specific mafioso element that artists like Kool G aim for. The first and foremost being crime, which Drake never glamorizes. Everyone cares about family, success, and sex. Not just Tony Montana.
Mar 22, 2017 Thinking about it, Drake's ego raps are the kind of opposite of mafioso, because they aren't rooted in fantasies. His ego raps work because the s--- comes off as the undisputed truth. When he brags about sales and popularity and running rap, that s--- is gospel. He doesn't need to daydream to brag.
