What’s Too Late, Drake?

What’s Too Late, Drake?Drake stealthily pulled a “Beyoncé” and with no warning dropped his mixtape “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late”, on the six-year anniversary of his mixtape “So Far Gone”. However, “So Far Gone” was filled with a lot more passion, complex hooks, and rhymes, many are saying that “If You’re Reading This” is much more vulnerable, and a lot less ‘soulless’ than the Drake we’re used to.So what’s the story behind “If You’re Reading This”?Drake released a short film called “Jungle” , which features him venting his worries, while he drives around Toronto in a supped up black car, only to end up in a beater with no auxiliary chords at the end of the movie. Clips of Drake’s childhood, rapping at a young age and his up and coming fame are featured. But the whole time you watch the movie you can’t help but feel something eerie about the music and Drake’s worried facial expression, as he walks the streets of his hometown you catch his expressive emotions and exhaustion coming through the screen. Drake explains that he feels like he hasn’t been home for too long, and shares some laughs with his friend while fighting back tears; the long and melodic music sets the mood for “If You’re Reading This”.The mixtape was originally supposed to be a free release, but Drake’s label Cash Money, also the label that Lil Wayne is currently seeking to sue, convinced him to release it through retail. The dropping of Drake’s mixtape and short film signal change, the music and the lyrics so different from his 2013 album “Nothing Was the Same”, Drake goes from saying “Do it look like we stressin’? Look at you” on his hit “Worst Behavior” to saying “Haven’t left the condo for a week now” on the track “The6” from his new mixtape. Going from the boasting, and maybe even too confident rapper, to someone that purposely slurs his words in his songs and talks about being paranoid and lonely.Perhaps Drakes retail album was released to help him fulfill his contract with YMCMB, before he follows in the footsteps of his mentor Lil Wayne and leaves Birdman for good. The tape that topped the Billboard charts as number one and sold around 495,000 online copies, is filled with less than complex, deep and melodic songs that hardly have a hook. Maybe “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” is Drakes way of closing a chapter of his career that began with “So Far Gone”, expressing his loneliness, fear and distance from home through his casually flawless, yet tense, and weary rhymes.Yours Creatively,Rylee Elfert, Frosh RepresentativeImage: Pigeons and Planes