Drake’s latest album “For All the Dogs” was recently released in early October. This album was allegedly supposed to bring back the “Old Drake.” The intention was to reduce the amount of afro-funk beats that were peppered throughout “Honestly Nevermind”, another Drake album, and shift towards the blues genre. After listening to the album, I felt ambivalent: on one hand, some songs did remind me of the “Old Drake”, but many felt like he was going for a different style that did not match him. The album features, Sexxy Red, Teezo Touchdown, 21 Savage, J. Cole, Yeat, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Chief Keef, Bad Bunny, SZA, Lil Yatchy, and his son Adonis Graham.

When I saw the melange of artists that were invited to be on the album, I knew I was gonna have mixed emotions about the album because some of the artists don’t make the same genre of music.  There’s a negative and a positive to this. All of these featured artists are skillful in their own way, but I knew they’d sound weird because Drake and/or the featured artist would try to match music styles that don’t fit together. A shining example of this, Yeat is known for being more of the “new underground” music artist, while Drake is more of rap and R&B. 

Drake’s last few albums haven’t been the best. There may have been a few hits on the albums but there hasn’t been a recent album that makes us think of the “Old Drake”. One of Drake’s earliest albums, “Take Care” was about Drake feeling uneasy about his lost love. In “For All the Dogs,” his best songs are also about a lost love. There’s a theory that he’s talking about SZA, but let’s not jump to conclusions. (This reminds me of his constant pining for Nicki Minaj).

You know the song will be good when you see a time and place as the title. The song “4 pm in Charlotte” most definitely brings the “Old Drake”. Take me back to the times I listen to songs from his earliest album “Care Package.” This song feels like a car ride with an open rooftop and a nice fall breeze.

Have you ever listened to someone make the same apologies over and over again with no change? “Bahamas Promises” is a song about how Drake would’ve taken the mysterious girl to meet his friends and he would show her off but he can’t because of how the girl treats him, and he’s tired of accepting her apologies over and over again. 

In “Virginia Beach,” the tempo starts off slow and then picks up a faster beat. It almost sounds like a song that I would listen to by myself because it expresses a lot of different emotions. The song explains how Drake would have treated his lost love better than whoever was next after him. He says “I move mountains for you…” This shows that he would do anything for this girl. It’s not the best one in the album but I’ll give it a 7/10.  

The best song in the album would most likely be the song he had released before the album came out “Slime You Out” (feat. SZA.) This song reminds me of “Old Drake.” This is the song that makes me think of his past albums “Take Care” and “Nothing Was the Same”. 

Unfortunately, throughout the rest of “For All the Dogs,” Drake is more of a rapper and the beats are synthetic. He used an array of beats and rhythms that didn’t fit his voice; he even added a bit of a Playboi Carti flow, which I would love to tell Drake to never do again. The people that he invites to be on this album take over, and the features aren’t meant to take over the songs. For example, the song that features Yeat sounds like a Yeat song, but Drake can’t rap like Yeat. He’s clearly trying, but it’s just. . . not working.

Not all features are bad, however. The cutest, and wholesome moment and/or song in the album is two minutes into the song “Daylight,” when Adonis Graham, Drake’s 6-year-old son starts his own feature. 

Sometimes, Drake is even acting childish on the album. In “Fear of Heights,” Drake is found dissing the known singer Rihanna, saying, “Why they make it sound like I’m still hung up on you. That could never be. Gyal can’t run me.” The word “gyal” is the Caribbean pronunciation of “girl” Wanna know who’s Caribbean? Rihanna is. Drake also says “Yeah I’m anti.” Want to know who made an album called “Anti?” Rihanna did. This makes me think of teenagers, not men.  

This album kind of meets up with the old, and vulnerable Drake. Not all of the songs are slow and remind me of R&B. Some of them are upbeat and rapping. It seems like we need Drake to make music after a breakup for the best bars and beats. I’m not saying that I want him to be upset, but his music sounds better when he’s feeling vulnerable