Drake: ICEMAN

Drake’s approach to recovery relies on expansive, repetitive statements rather than a single sharp line. His career centers on two recurring ideas: fame is difficult because it amplifies worst tendencies, and he questions why others do not trust him. He releases two and a half hours of music across three albums that divide his persona into aggrieved, lovelorn, and club-ready identities. The music functions like drunken voice notes and self-justifying screenshot-style posts, filling silence and avoiding discomfort. The projects are framed as a prolonged attempt to escape purgatory, with imagery that suggests a shift in perspective while implying the character cannot actually change.

"How to resurrect yourself and carry forward, head held aloft, after the biggest kill shot in hip-hop history? One way might be to hone a single, perfect statement-something narrow and vicious, a shiv to the ribs of the world that cheered your demise as your rival threw a Cheshire-Cat grin at you from the Super Bowl halftime show. That might have been wise, but Drake has never been wise-or concise."

"Drake's career has been predicated on the belief that there are endless ways to rephrase and restate the same two or three vague notions that have been swimming around like goldfish in his brainpan since before the iPhone was introduced: 1) Fame is hard, mostly because it indulges your worst tendencies, which you can always then blame on the heavy burdens of fame, and 2) Why do none of these conniving women and despicable hangers-on trust me?"

"So here comes two and a half hours of Drake music, spread across three distinct albums that trifurcate his persona: the aggrieved ICEMAN, the lovelorn HABIBTI, and the club-ready MAID OF HONOUR. There was probably no other way for Drake to blast himself out of purgatory: His ideal forum has always been the drunken voice note or the self-justifying Notes app screenshot. He never met an uncomfortable silence he couldn't smother, and across his three new studio albums, he girds his loins for the longest filibuster of his existence."

"The cover invokes Michael Jackson's iconic sequined glove-not usually a heartening sign of an artist readjusting his perspective and seeking firmer ground. But really, what would we do, as listeners, if the character Aubrey Drake Graham played in his music ever encountered "perspective"? He can't. We count on him not to."

Read at Pitchfork