I love music and I love discussing music with friends and other fans of any genre. I am more of a Hip-Hop lover than anything else, but I still appreciate other genres. My love for Hip-Hop gets me into a lot of heated discussions because I prefer older artists and I just cannot understand the concept of mumble rap. The most recent debate was about Drake’s new album More Life. All of the Drake fans I know kept telling me to listen to it, they hyped this album like he never did an album before. I wasn’t impressed and the debates began. I was told that I wasn’t giving him a chance and I’m stuck in the old days of Hip-Hop.
A few days later a DJ friend of mine made a comment about Kendrick Lamar’s new album Damn, saying that Kendrick is a refreshing artist in this time of Hip-Hop. This made me wonder: is Kendrick really one of the best out right now? I made my argument without listening to either album at the time stating that I feel Kendrick will have the better album out of the two. Once again, Drake fans went into attack mode and started telling me about all of the things Drake is known for and how cool Drake is. So instead of going toe to toe with all the fans separately, I will say this one good time and hope that you see where I am coming from.
Now, I refuse to compare Drake and Kendrick as artists. They are two completely different artists and they don’t even rap about the same topics. Even though neither artist is considered my favorite, I still like their music and wouldn’t count them out. I am simply comparing two albums that were released around the same time. I don’t care about who has the most money, who is more popular, or who looks better on the red carpet. I am only focused on the music. This is some of what separates listeners like myself and diehard fans of the artist. Real diehard fans are loyal to their artist, they can do no wrong and they defend them to the end. Hey, I get it, just like some of my friends are real Drake fans I am a diehard Nas fan. You can’t tell me that Nas is not one of the top MCs of all time and I will forever say that “Ether” is one of the best diss tracks in Hip-Hop history. However, as an avid all around music fan, I still had to come to the realization that Nastradamus was not his best work.
I feel like Drake fans should face the fact that More Life may not be his best work and stop forcing it on me and others that share my sentiments. Without being biased, I listen for different things in an album before saying that it’s good. There are different elements that I listen for from the time I hear about the album coming out to the actual project itself. Let's take a look.
The Hype
I try not to get sucked into the hype of an album. The hype generated is like the trailer for a movie that’s coming to a theater near you. They show you the best parts of the movie and tell you all the stars that are in it. The sole purpose is to make you want to buy into it. When an artist hints that they have a new album coming out the most common way is to release a single and start to bait the audience. Drake released “Fake Love”, and in true Drake fashion pulled his fans in with his singing and catchy lines. For me, it was his sample of “Back Stabbers” by the Ojays that got me to stop and listen. With this single, I wasn’t sold but open to hearing more of his album. When he finally released More Life I was not impressed.
Aside from releasing a single, you can also create a hype by simply mentioning that you have a project coming out. Kendrick released “The Heart Part 4” and blatantly told us that we had until April 7th to get our lives together for his new album. When you start dropping dates it creates a buzz on its own. It makes you want to stay tuned to what could possibly come next. By this time, I had been listening to “More Life” for almost a week straight and I wanted to see what Kendrick had to say on his album. Now that he has my attention, I marked my calendar for the 7th and all I got was a pre-order on iTunes. Now the hype is even greater, not only did he have me waiting he stood me up and rescheduled. This was a bold move because after this if the album turned out to be wack it could have gone all kinds of bad for him.
Judging by the buzz generated for the two albums I believe that Kendrick won this round. For the hype that was generated for More Life, the album itself was more of a letdown. It wasn’t horrible, but considering the hype around it I was looking for something bigger and I got a mixtape basically. I think that if I wasn’t expecting this great big project that I kept hearing about I would have received it differently.
Track List
Yes, Drake gave us 22 tracks but it was quantity over quality. All that did was make it one long drawn out album. Out of those 22 tracks I only took away 4 and they were solely because they sound good overall. The tracks I pulled were “Free Smoke”, “Passion Fruit”, “Madiba Riddim” and “Portland”. I barely remember the lyrics, in fact, the only times I recognize the lyrics are when fans make memes out of them. I just groove to the tracks and label it as background music.
Kendrick, on the other hand, has a shorter list of 14 songs. In my opinion, these are 14 well thought out tracks, quality over quantity. I could listen to the whole album more than a few times without skipping or getting bored. With each song, he came through with the lyrical content and I was still entertained. Kendrick’s delivery was better to me. If you don’t want to take my word for it the proof is in the numbers Kendrick’s entire album made it to the top 100 list with three tracks in the top 15. That’s impressive- fan or not.
So, after listening to both albums at least 3 times without skipping to make sure I gave them both a fair shot, I think Kendrick won this round too. Even though More Life gave me more tracks, Kendrick’s album Damn had a stronger track list.
Longevity
Since More Life has been released as time goes on I listen to it less. I did add the four tracks that I like to my playlist but I don’t see myself listening to the album as a whole anytime soon. In my eyes, this will just be filler album in Drake’s catalog. He did mention that this album is supposed to hold us until he comes back with a bigger project. I guess this was his hype for another album that I hope is better than this one. Since Kendrick’s album had more substance and I have not put it down since its release, I feel like I will be listening to it consistently. I have placed it in the rotation of my favorite albums along with Jidenna, J. Cole, Rick Ross, Bruno Mars, and Nas. I guess Kendrick won this round as well.
A friend compared Kendrick’s new album to water for your thirst. Using the same analogy, I feel Drake’s album is like a soft drink. Yea it tastes good and I don’t mind drinking it but I will be thirsty again.
Because of my views, people often try to make me say that Kendrick is one of the best artists. I can’t confidently say that. I will say he has potential but it’s still too early for me to put that type of stamp on him. Both Drake and Kendrick, however, are two of the most important artists for the millennials and I am interested to see how they will evolve in their careers.
To all my Drake fans out there, I still don’t think that your boy is a horrible artist he just didn’t have a good album and that’s ok. Stop beating me up I've been listening to Drake since Comeback Season and “Replacement Girl.” I remember when his character Jimmy on Degrassi was rapping in a wheelchair. I am not against him, I just didn’t like his new album and I’m not sorry. To my Kendrick fans, your boy did good with this one. I thought To Pimp a Butterfly was my favorite, but I think it's now his newest one. Moral of the story kids is that you can support your favorite artist and still know good music. The difference between music fans and artist fans is their unbiased towards the projects. Sometimes our favorite artists let us down, it's just like that sometimes, but we know when they are good and when they just didn’t bring it.
