Review Summary: Nobody's Gain
This has never not been the case, but Drake is down bad in 2022. Where once his name used to playlist frat parties and clubs, Aubrey’s name now inspires little more than a shrug and a red flag signifier on Hinge profiles as his lyricism has devolved to an endless list of captions and catchphrases not dissimilar to the scene from the highly underrated Lonely Island film,
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. After falsely promising a classic in the ninety-minute Nyquil that was
Certified Lover Boy and trying, rather embarrassingly, to change things up with the four-on-the-snore
Honestly, Nevermind, Drizzy has smartly chosen to release his latest project,
Her Loss with little in the way of promises or expectations. Credit where credit is due, the album is billed as a full-blown collaboration with 21 Savage, whose appearances marked some of the lone “high” points on Drake’s last few projects. There is a reasonable expectation that, while Drake may no longer be able to make anything even close to approximating a classic, maybe there will be a few moments of fun sprinkled along the way.
Like eating a cupcake purely from the top, most of those sprinkles come from the first bite with the legitimately fun opener, “Rich Flex”. The song is a hodge-podge of beat switches and 21 bragging about how tough he is and the two exchanging brags of unimaginable wealth and power, but the special sauce comes from the palpable energy on the track where you can actually feel Drake making f
uck-me eyes at 21 in the booth. One gets the sense that Drake is starstuck and happy that he managed to secure a high-profile collaboration with England’s favorite son, and that giddy energy is legitimately palpable on the first few tracks as Drake flows effortlessly over 40’s ever-changing production. For these brief and shining moments, it appears as if the experiment of aiming lower than he ever has is working in Drake’s favor and he has, against all odds, put out a project worthy of a footnote in his storied career.
Unfortunately, that energy comes to a screeching halt as it seems all involved become disinterested and bored in their own machinations. At an hour in length, there is simply not enough variety in subject matter, production, or energy to keep the proceedings interesting and the tracklist more or less becomes different -and worse- variations of the album’s opener. “Circo Loco” is this album’s “Way 2 Sexy” by operating around a slowed down sample of Daft Punk’s “One More Time” and turns out to be just as embarrassing as you’d imagine, including a needless and, frankly, disgusting diss at Megan the Stallion. The album’s ‘lone’ feature -but, let’s be honest, this is a Drake album with many 21 features- lies with Travis Scott in “P
ussy and Millions” with a verse that’s not exactly good, but the variety and change in energy is sorely needed. Other twists include the overly long and overly boring Drake solo, “Middle of the Ocean”, where he once again tries to cry about the ladies and having no more worlds to conquer, and the surprise of 21 taking point on the signature “Time in Place” song on a Drake project. Neither of these diversions work but, hey, it’s something.
And really, that’s all you can really expect from Drizzy at this point. We know he is washed. We know he isn’t hungry. We know this will be a project that will be Tik Tok’d and captioned for a week before we all collectively move on. I can’t say that I didn’t have a pretty good idea what this project would be from the exact moment that it was announced, and I got exactly what I guessed it would be. There is nothing here that exceeds the modest promises of
Honestly, Nevermind’s “Jimmy Cooks”, but this is the best album in seven years for Drake. That’s not a compliment, but rather a damning signifier of just how limp and lifeless his output has become and it appears that no amount of assistance from 21 is going to change that.
Her Loss is nobody’s gain.
