Possibly such as you, I heard $ome $exy $ongs 4 U on Valentine’s Day en path to a weekend journey with my girlfriend. An admittedly less-than-optimal setting; a lot of Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR’s new collab album traverses the lusty dejection, reversed samples, and bleeding pads of single-man R&B. However then, about 40 minutes into the album, and fewer than a 3rd of a approach into our lengthy drive to Massachusetts, we obtained to “Nokia.” The title suggests a nostalgia play, however actually, it exemplifies a line on the album’s hardened Kendrick reply “Gimme a Hug”: “Fuck a rap beef, I’m tryna get the get together lit.” That is Drake asking you to place up your blinders and hit the dancefloor. When you’re so prepared, you’re in for a deal with.
Each Drake album has its requisite dance observe, however this one instantly feels prepared for a drunken karaoke evening. Elkan, a younger, sought-after London producer from the web pattern pack group, laces Drake with a sweaty Atlanta bass beat peppered with flashy synths and the producer’s personal delirious, kind of androgynous vocals. (I can think about Elkan listening to Stankonia or The Love Beneath and considering, Let’s restore this sense.) Within the second half, it will get even weirder: Because the beat stutters and slows right into a crunchy groove that’d match snugly on Commencement, Drake breaks into what I can solely describe as a Whodini-type stream: “I obtained drinks, jokes, intercourse, and money/These are 4 issues I can assure, my love.” It’s a bit like that scene in Degrassi: The Subsequent Era the place Jimmy tries to rap with Spinner, channeling ’80s rappers as made-for-TV rap songs are wont to do—solely this time, it’s truly good. Tucked inside an indulgent, fan-service file that we will all agree seems like a “break glass in case of emergency” second, “Nokia” may come off as an apparent ploy to attain a success. Even when that’s true, I’ll admit: We ran it again no less than 10 instances on the trip dwelling.
