Since getting dragged in that rap battle with Kendrick Lamar, losing his defamation suit against Universal Music Group and dropping that lukewarm joint mixtape “$ome $exy $ongs 4 U” with Partynextdoor, Drake has been relatively quiet—presumably cooking up a grand comeback. Except, fans just aren’t feeling Drizzy’s latest drop, and we’re about to explain why.
On Friday, May 15, Drake released not one but three albums — “ICEMAN,” “MAID OF HONOR” and “HABIBTI” — to reclaim his throne as the most popular rapper out right now. While he remains one of the rappers with the highest streams on Spotify and has even surpassed the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, with the most albums that have spent a decade on the Billboard 200, his trifecta of albums left fans disappointed. Some feel that his music has gone stale with nothing fresh to offer.
The Guardian labeled the comeback a “boring, bloated disaster,” rating it 2 out of 5 stars and even asking whether Drake dropped all three projects so he could get out of his three-album record deal with Universal Music Group. However, the publication also noted that the album had some tracks, like “Ran to Atlanta” and “Burning Bridges,” that were superbly produced. The New York Times podcast “Popcast” also celebrated the incredible production, specifically shouting out the track “Janice STFU.”
On the other hand, Pitchfork rated “ICEMAN” on the lower side with a score of 4.8, stating that Drake’s music hasn’t been fun to listen to in over a decade and is a failed attempt to settle his score with K-Dot. The publication even went so far as to call each new Drake project a “buffet of humiliation, mortification and self-serving delusion.”
GQ and Rolling Stone weren’t as harsh on the “Hotline Bling” artist. GQ noted that “ICEMAN” is the most experimental Drake has been when it comes to songwriting, structure and beat selection in the past decade. And Rolling Stone applauded Drake for delivering another project that proves he’s mastered his cross-genre sound.
However, both GQ and Rolling Stone added that while he might have some decent jabs at Kendrick Lamar, it’s his focus on the beef that makes the project boring. According to Rolling Stone, “the album still feels overstuffed with rebuttals that at times feel like too little, too late.” And GQ wrote, “There’s one too many moments across ‘Iceman’ where you just want him to move the fuck on already.”
But after the humiliating loss Drake faced over the last two years with Lamar’s hit diss track “Not Like Us” and his performance of the song at the Super Bowl, The Washington Post wrote that it’s natural for the rapper not to want to move on from the beef and instead wants to settle the score. Yet, the publication also wrote that the disses the Canadian rapper delivered could have been more hard-hitting because at the moment, “he sounds like a man who’s spent the last two years drafting the same angry texts.”
Longtime fans of Drake have given similar criticisms of the album on X, with some calling it a “snooze fest.”
Another user on X called the rapper out for being a “cash cow” by releasing the project, writing: “Couple bangers on Iceman. Couple cold transitions as well. I will be rinsing Make Them Cry for the foreseeable future. But the album is boring and Drake sounds sad. The Drake I hate features heavily on this as well. But Drake is inevitable. An absolute cash cow.”
Still, other fans have been bumping Drake’s triad of projects and calling folks who have negative things to say about the albums haters.
“Drake haters everywhere trying to pretend Drake didn’t just drop a classic,” wrote one user.
“I’ve noticed Drake haters never digest his albums. He literally dropped 3 and n***as were calling it all trash at 4 am,” wrote another.
