Declan Hale

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Drake just Did Something That’s Never Been Done Before…

Drake has been hyping up the release of his new album “ICEMAN” for several months now, but he shocked many when he suddenly announced that he will be dropping 2 extra albums at the same time. This came to fruition, and I’ll give credit where credit is due: I’ve never seen an artist of his level pull something off like this.

In the era of shrinking attention spans, it’s an ambitious move to release nearly 3 hours of music simultaneously, and the work ethic needed to pull something off like that is impressive.

However, quantity does not equal quality, and after listening to these projects, I think it’s given us a clearer look into Drake’s mindset and psyche than ever before. And it’s not a pretty look.

But first, some context.

How Did We Get Here?

I’m not going to go over Drake’s entire career trajectory, since that’s something even your grandma knows at this point. But, I think it’s important to look a little bit at what’s been going in Drake’s life before these albums to give some context to the lyrics.

You can find online discussions and reviews as early as 2016 talking about Drake’s music losing the original magic seen on his earliest mixtapes and albums. However, 2016’s “Views” and two subsequent projects “More Life” and “Scorpion” still turned out to be monstrous commercial successes that only heightened his appeal with the general public.

It wasn’t until the 2020s that the cracks truly began to show in the foundation of his empire, starting with the release of “Certified Lover Boy.” This album did grab him a couple more big hits, but the hands of time have not been friendly to these tracks compared to his past hits, and the reviews of the album as a whole showed that critics were no longer willing to put up with Drake’s schtick.

This was not helped by his following solo albums, “Honestly, Nevermind” and “For All The Dogs,” the former a misstep into house music that got panned across the board, and the latter a return to “same-old” which only further cemented the public perception of Drake resting on his laurels and skirting any efforts to grow artistically.

Then, 2024 happened.

Rapper Kendrick Lamar dissed Drake on his feature verse for Future’s “Like That,” leading to a beef that’s already reached the cultural heights of 2Pac vs. Biggie and Jay-Z vs. Nas. The two exchanged a flurry of diss tracks, and the court of public opinion undoubtedly decided Kendrick as the winner. Die-hard Drake fans may disagree with this sentiment, but it’s hard to argue otherwise when Kendrick’s victory lap consisted of multiple Grammy wins and the opportunity to call Drake a pedophile on America’s biggest stage.

And that leads us to the present. Aside from an R&B collaboration with PARTYNEXTDOOR, these three albums are Drake’s first full-length releases since this beef.

One of the biggest complaints recent Drake releases have received is that it doesn’t seem like he’s trying anymore, and in a commercial sense, why would he? He’s achieved everything someone at his level can, and the albums will go platinum no manner how much he tries. However, this public squabble gave him something he hasn’t had in a long time: the chance to prove himself, and the chance to grow. So, do these albums reflect that?

The short answer: of course not.

The Albums

We’ll go over the two “surprise” albums first, since these offer less regarding the topic at hand, but are still worth mentioning to help tell the complete story here.

“HABIBTI,” for all intents and purposes, is standard Drake R&B fare. This isn’t the first time Drake has split his R&B work from his hip-hop: “Scorpion” was released as a double album, with the front half consisting of rap tracks and the back half filled with R&B. This album, though, is strictly R&B, and if you’ve heard Drake’s singing material before, you’re not missing anything here.

The instrumentals are all silky smooth (some a little spare, but great for the most part), and Qendresa and PARTYNEXTDOOR deliver good features. Drake, meanwhile, struggles to give a standout performance on any song. There are some laughable lines, like “Insurance on the dick if you want, cover me with Geico,” but otherwise, most of the lyrical content across the album is indicative of a much larger issue in Drake’s late-career music. More on that later.

“MAID OF HONOUR,” on the other hand, is strictly for the dance floor. If you’re looking for the songs to play in the car or request at the club, this is the album to go to. Lots of thumping 808s, rapid hi-hats, and Jersey Club influences to keep your feet moving: basically, a safer version of “Honestly, Nevermind.”

For better or worse, this feels like the least “Drake” album of this drop. There are some questionable choices, like the “Cha-Cha Slide” interpolation on “Cheetah Print,” Drake’s ridiculous accent switch-ups, and the silliest line of the album: “You could make a blind man see eye-to-eye.” Nonetheless, it’s probably the best album in this batch, if partially for the fact that it’s the least offensive project of the trio (though I will still most likely never return to it).

Then, there’s the big one. “ICEMAN.”

“HABIBTI” was R&B, “MAID OF HONOUR” was for the dance tracks, so expectedly, this is the hip-hop/rap album. It’s nearly 30 minutes longer than either of the other albums, and it’s unintentionally revealing in the worst way possible.

With a couple exceptions, the beats are all very minimalistic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it forces you to listen to what Drake is saying on every track, and that’s where the biggest problems of this album start.

As mentioned above, many were excited for this album because the surrounding context gave Drake a reason to get “back in his bag” and focus on creating something great (not to mention that this would be his first solo project since 2023: one of the longest breaks Drake has ever taken between albums). Many also publicly voiced that this would give him a chance to get away from the shadow of the Kendrick Lamar beef.

Unfortunately, Drake fails on all fronts.

The first signs of Drake being unable to accomplish these targets were seen in the lead single “What Did I Miss,” released back in July of 2025. This was the first single he had released since the Kendrick Lamar feud, and the “cool and unbothered” stance he took in it was transparent, much in the same way a kid might try to act unaffected when being teased on the playground. “ICEMAN” carries this same attitude throughout.

The start of the Drake/Kendrick feud is two years old at this point, and Kendrick Lamar’s Superbowl performance (what many consider the final nail in the coffin of the beef) happened over a year before this album’s release. However, it is obviously still on Drake’s mind, since the album is filled with sneak disses and side comments about it.

Drake wastes no time sharing his stances, as the first track, “Make Them Cry,” attempts to address the beef from a more collected standpoint. In a vacuum, it seems like a solid self-reflection on his own career in the aftermath of the beef, with the following lyrics acting as a stand-out example of this:

I came here to turn a new leaf and maybe finally get some sleep
But all I can think about is the mountain to climb and the conversations surrounding my music like they’re Twin Peak
With Dot back in 2024 was a big piece
So it’s like, this shit is me, but it isn’t me
Y’all keep on asking me what it did to me, that’s what it did to me
When I dig deep, they say dig deeper
Tell us how it felt to meet the grim reaper
This album better have some big features
Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m all alone for my mental

However, in context with the rest of the album, this comes off as shallow and inauthentic. When the rest of the project is filled with petty grievances and half-disses towards everyone that “turned on him” in 2024, it’s clear that the growth displayed in these lines if merely surface-level and performative.

More obvious examples of this can be heard in “Ran To Atlanta.” Even the title is a reference to one of Kendrick’s most biting lines from his diss track: “The settlers was usin’ townfolk to make ’em richer/Fast-forward, 2024, you got the same agenda/You run to Atlanta when you need a check balance.” It’s also no coincidence this is the only track across the three albums to feature Future, one of Atlanta’s most notable artists and a large reason the beef started in the first place.

None of this is to say that Drake can’t reference the beef at all. It was a big moment in his career, and he’s entitled to mention it. We also can’t forget, though, that after getting beaten lyrically, Drake unsuccessfully attempted to sue Kendrick for defamation. When you do all that, then start throwing shots again and pretending like you have the upper hand, the audience can see right through that, and it makes the entire album feel desperate.

The most damning evidence of this is displayed in the last two tracks, “Firm Friends” and “Make Them Know.”

Aside from some of the shots on “Make Them Pay,” “Firm Friends” is one of the few times he directly addresses others involved with the beef. While he doesn’t really mention any names, he tries to take the higher stance and appear like he has more power over his contemporaries in the industry.

What’s interesting to note is that, despite the half-disses towards Kendrick throughout “ICEMAN,” he never really disses him in the same way he’ll attack other artists on this project. This really does show that the king is wearing no clothes: he lost one battle, so he’s trying to aim at smaller targets so he still looks intimidating and like he hasn’t lost any credibility. Instead, it all just comes off bitter and weak.

Finally, the last track “Make Them Know” offers one of the most telling pictures into Drake’s psyche, with some of the last lines on the album:

What happened to Drake from 2009
When all of the moments was intimate?
What happened to Drake with the innocence?
I don’t think we’ll be seein’ him again

It’s common for fans to want artists to go back to the “old days” and make music like they used to, but that’s not what is happening here. People aren’t asking Drake to go back to his old music, they’re just asking him to make good music.

But apparently, that’s not how Drake sees it. This line tells us that, in his eyes, people criticizing his music are pining for a long-gone era, and that he’s a different person now.

The real issue is that Drake hasn’t changed since 2009.

Why Drake Can’t Make Good Music ANymore

If you’ve heard of “Arrested Development,” it’s not just a TV show: it’s the psychological concept of someone’s emotional or social maturity being stunted, usually at some point in childhood.

While no formal scientific research has been done on it yet, many observations have pointed out that people who get famous during their childhood are likely to experience arrested development. We all know the real-life cliche of a child star trying to show their maturity, but they do it in ways that only children think of as mature (i.e. sexualizing themselves, taking drugs, etc.): that’s arrested development.

Bringing this back to the topic at hand, it’s not a secret that Drake got famous very early. It’s so easy to forget at this point considering his status in the music industry, but he originally got famous as a child star on “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” While there isn’t much information on Drake’s mental state during his time on the show and growing up as a child actor, my theory is that Drake has experienced some form of arrested development. Again, this is all speculation and not based on any psychological studies that have been done on Drake, but let me explain.

Drake’s earliest music–from his “So Far Gone” mixtape up to “If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late”–really connected with younger, teenage audiences, and this is common for entertainers. Most of the time, entertainers are usually one generation older than their core fanbase (the internet is changing this to some degree, but you still don’t see many Gen Alpha stars: it’s the Gen Z stars that know how to appeal to Gen Alpha). In this case, I think Drake was able to tap into something not many rappers before him had not because he was literally able to think like his core fanbase.

Fast forward a few years, and Drake still hasn’t changed, but he’s never had to. He reached such a high level of success that no matter what he put out, it would do numbers (plus, his marketing team has always been good at keeping up with internet trends). And, any beef he got into, from the ones we won (Meek Mill) to those he lost (Pusha T), he was able to overcome by being insanely commercially popular.

Then, during his Kendrick Lamar beef, Kendrick did something no one had done before: he became more popular than Drake. “Not Like Us” currently stands as the most popular diss track of all time, and ranks among even Drake’s biggest tracks. Nothing Drake could have done would eclipsed the level of fame that song attained.

So, fans were hoping for change on this album. But, Drake is literally not able to grow or self-reflect enough to achieve this kind of change, because he lacks the maturity as a person to do so.