There's no fake-Jamaican patois, gloomy tales of fame or any other Views-era Drake gimmicks on this track, one of his few new tracks that could feasibly fit at home on any of his previous releases. Meanwhile, Young Thug is near-unrecognizable here, with the rapper faring better on his second More Life feature, the swaggering reggae of Ice Melts. Sacrifices featuring 2 Chainz and Young ThugĬongratulations are in order for 2 Chainz, who walks away from Sacrifices with one of the best feature verses of the project. Thankfully, Drake's jokey lyrics ("My side girl got a 5S with the screen cracked, still hit me back right away") and welcome appearances from Travis Scott and Quavo keep Portland from sounding too self-serious. The track's flute-heavy production probably hoped to copy the ominous-sounding wind instruments on Future's hit Mask Off, but ends up sounding more like the goofy recorder on D.R.A.M.'s Broccoli. Portland featuring Travis Scott and Quavo He hands over the whole woozy track to the singer's extremely capable falsetto, which lends 4422 an emotional heft rarely felt on the rest of More Life. But sung over one of More Life's most colorful samples, listening to the rapper mull over his trust issues finally sounds fun again.ĭrake doesn't just let Sampha - the British artist he collaborated with on Nothing Was the Same highlight Too Much - take center stage here. Here, Drake returns to complaining about the famous-people problems he spent much of Views questioning. It's hard to imagine how the track could be any better with Lopez's addition, as Smith and Drake trade verses over a gentle house beat that's one of More Life's best. Lo's vocals are replaced by the rising U.K. But on their supposed collaboration Get It Together, J. Get It Together featuring Black Coffee, Jorja Smithĭrake's rumored paramour Jennifer Lopez immediately establishes a presence on the album, thanks to his allusion to drunk-texting her seconds into More Life's first track. When seen as a collage of inspiration, More Life and its peaks and valleys, including a killer run of summertime-ready dance tracks that precedes the album's less-impressive second half, don't seem as distracting as they would on a Drake studio album, which have the heightened responsibility of meeting the standards set by his previous critically acclaimed projects Take Care and Nothing Was the Same.īut the bar shouldn't be set any lower for More Life because it's a mixtape, and thankfully for Drake fans, it's better than Views, injecting some life into the mid-tempo beats that dominate both releases. However listeners want to categorize More Life, its proof of quality isn't in its concept, it's in its songs, and these were the tracks that stood out.Īfter two opening songs that see Drake returning to the shots-fired paranoia that helped sink Views, Passionfruit bursts with color, a track that nods to the '80s-referencing earnestness of his hit Hold On, We're Going Home, and the first in a string of Caribbean-inspired tracks that show the rapper isn't finished with his successful formula from past hits One Dance and Controlla. And why wouldn't it, if his mixtape is surveying his musical headspace of the moment? More Life leapfrogs from dancehall and grime to moody R&B and beats built from elementary school recorders. But perhaps the difference between the poorly reviewed Views and More Life, which Twitter welcomed as a return to form for the rapper, has as much to do with its framing as with its songs.ĭrake deliberately labeled his latest project a "playlist," and while the difference may be in name only, More Life makes way more sense as the artist's sonic Pinterest board as it does a proper album. Of course a Drake mixtape would include his frequent collaborators and favorite influencers, with his verses often taking a back seat to contributions by Kanye West, Young Thug, Travis Scott, Quavo, 2 Chainz, Skepta and PARTYNEXTDOOR.
Drake's new project More Life, which premiered Saturday night on his OVO Sound Radio on Apple Music, boasts the exact same runtime - 1 hour and 22 minutes - as Views, his sprawling studio album from last April.Ĭonsistency is a lot to ask for a 22-track collection, and like Views, More Life is too packed with ideas to make for a unified aesthetic.
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