YMMV / Drake

• Anvilicious: "Nice for What", a song that gets straight to the point about how hard women work and how they don't need to submit to others who talk down on them. It helps that Drake subtly criticizes the hip-hop industry in the song for objectifying women.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Take Care": Even the Auto-Tune works well with the cold, regretful tone of the song.
  • "Nice for What", featuring a funky, danceable beat sampling Lauryn Hill as well as some great wordplay from Drake.
• Broken Base: Debates on whether or not the quality of his material took a nosedive after If You're Reading This It's Too Late
• Crack Pairing: Him and Soulja Boy on "We Made It".
• Ending Fatigue: Neither "We'll Be Fine" from Take Care, "The Language" from Nothing Was the Same nor "Middle of the Ocean" from Her Loss need Birdman doing a 40-second+ outro of dull, cliched talking.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Judging by critical reaction and sales, Rihanna seems to be one whenever she appears on his songs and vice versa.
  • When it comes to his projects, his If You're Reading This It's Too Late is quite well-liked due to its consistency.
• Fandom Heresy: Discussed in "Fear", with "Don't take this the wrong way but/I never cried when Pac died/ But I probably will when Hov does". Later on he explained that it wasn't meant to be a diss, but that he was 9 when Tupac died and didn't really understand it.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Drake fans vs. Common fans. This is not helped by the artists' various Twitter battles, although this has simmered down and the fanbases get along fine these days.
  • Also Drake vs. Chris Brown fans. This got especially heated when Rihanna was involved. This calmed down once both Drake and Brown became friends and even talked about doing a joint album.
  • The infamous Drake vs. Meek Mill beef, which fortunately ended in 2019 when both made amends and eventually squashed it and released "Going Bad" to aclame from both fanbases and the public at large.
  • Drake vs Pusha T has been a heated debate as to whether Pusha's song, "Story of Adidon", is the greatest diss track since 2001's Ether, or a futile attempt to gain relevance. The biggest source of contention among fans is the fact that Pusha ousted Drake as a deadbeat father to the baby of a pornstar (Drake eventually conceding that he did have a son he hid from the public), with many debating whether or not it was right to do or merely crossed a personal line.
    • Drake vs. Kanye is also a popular one as result of this.
• Growing the Beard: First Take Care, which refined his rap/R&B/pop aesthetic, and then Nothing Was the Same, which combined all three styles into each song rather than separate genre tracks, went further. The singles he released habitually since Nothing Was The Same's release were where people who weren't already fans started to take notice however. He's even had comparisons to Jay-Z.
  • If You're Reading This It's Too Late is also considered this by many of his fans and non fans due to it being a well-constructed project front to back with many catchy and hard-hitting songs throughout. He also literally grew a beard around this time, which he's since mostly maintained.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • It's very clear which songs on Scorpion were written before and after Pusha T outed him as having and hiding an illegitimate child with a pornstar, with several lines being way more pertinent knowing the context behind it. "I'm Upset" in particular is especially awkward, as many lines are him transparently complaining about having to pay child support to a not-so-hypothetical baby mama "hoe", bragging about still having "seven years of doing what I want" (implying he intended to hide his son for much longer), and proudly comparing himself to his own Disappeared Dad.
    • The situation around Drake's illegitimate child and his trying to hide it also casts a new light on some of his earlier lyrics, such as "I never get attracted to fans/'Cause the eager beaver could be the collapse of a dam" on "Ignant Shit" and "I could never have a kid, then be out here still kiddin' round" on "Portland".
  • "Circo Loco" was controversial on release for the line "This bitch lie 'bout gettin' shots, but she still a stallion", which many interpreted as an attack on Megan Thee Stallion, accusing her of lying about being shot by Drake's rival-turned-friend Tory Lanez. What sends it into this territory though is that in December 2022, just under 2 months after its release, Lanez was convicted on three charges stemming from shooting Megan, and ended up sentenced to 10 years in prison.
• Heartwarming Moments: The music video for "God's Plan" is basically Drake going around and giving inordinate amounts of money to people to help them with their lives, such as paying for a girls' post-secondary education. He also does several meet-and-greets for different fans, with many of them crying in joy at the sight of him.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • On his album Graffiti, Chris Brown had a song with a line "Drake would say that you're the best he ever had". Come the 2016 VMAs...
  • Drake's verse in "Only" begins with him asserting that he and Nicki Minaj never had sex, but they would as soon as she and her boyfriend broke up. Not long after, Nicki broke up with her longtime boyfriend, Safaree Samuels and started dating Meek Mill, though they later broke up and Nicki ultimately began dating Kenneth Petty, who would later marry her in 2019.
• Ho Yay: "Rich Flex" has spawned a lot of memes and parodies revolving around how it sounds like Drake is flirting with 21 Savage.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Drake has been steadily gaining more and more criticism for this Views onward, with critics and fans becoming more aware of Drake's almost exclusive reliance on his signature sound. While he's managed to maintain success and score big hits anyway, his actual albums and various mixtapes have also been been criticized for being too bloated and homogenized with filler, turning his soft, intentionally drowsy style into something boring and lifeless.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • YOLO (You Only Live Once), the titular "Motto".
  • "Drake the type of nigga that (insert very polite or dorky action here)."
  • "Started from the Bottom" has many memes based on its opening lines.
  • "No New Friends" has its own Tumblr based on all of the new friends Drake has made over the years.
  • "(thing) goin' up... on a Tuesday!" – even though it's not his song, Drake's remix was undoubtedly what made the line go viral.
  • His "Hotline Bling" music video featured Drake dancing; two poses he makes early on led to the phenomenon of "Drakeposting", in which Drake non-verbally voices disapproval of one thing followed by approval of another.
  • "Hotline Bling" has often been compared to the Wii Shop Channel music and vice versa. There's even a mashup of the two.^note In reality, "Hotline Bling" samples the Timmy Thomas song "Why Can't We Live Together," but it's easy to hear why the songs all sound similar.
  • "No don't do it, please don't do it" from "Headlines".
  • The album artwork for Views (which has Drake Photoshopped to be sitting on top of the CN Tower) has gotten extremely popular just based off of people editing out Drake and making him sit on all kinds of things.
  • Two from God's Plan- the "She say do you love me" bar, as well as the image of Drake passionately hugging a teary eyed fan.
    • Another one is playing the "God's Plan" video backwards, making it look like Drake is robbing the family he gives money to.
  • The out-of-context line "I'm Obama" from his appearance on "Oprah's Bank Account", usually accompanied by him replacing Obama in an image with Obama in it.
  • Another out-of-context line, this one from "Girls Want Girls" where he says "Say that you a lesbian, girl, me too", being cited as proof of him being gay, along with changing the name of the album to Certified Boy Lover.
  • “Shimmey shimmey ey shimmey ey shimmey yah!”
• Misattributed Song: Pretty much any song he guest stars on has been misattributed to him, especially when the lead artist is largely unknown (such as ILOVEMAKKONEN's Tuesday and BlocBoyJB's Look Alive). Justified in the case of Rick Ross's "Aston Martin Music", because in the full version (used in the music video) Drake raps for about half the song.
• Moment of Awesome: "Back to Back", his second diss track to Meek Mill in the same week. His first track "Charged Up" was merely seen as okay, but when this track dropped, people were already talking about funeral arrangements for Meek.
• Narm: Drake's become notorious among dedicated Hip-Hop heads for this. Especially over the years as he's shifted more from his melodic pop-rap style to his current edgier minimalist rap, a lot more attention has been placed onto his pen game, and listeners have found many a corny bar.
  • "Hotline Bling". It's a song about a broken man angsting over his ex. But a few of the lyrics are unintentionally funny and the video is absolutely hilarious thanks to the setting, Drake's costumes, and dancing.
  • Some listeners have a similar reaction to his use of Jamaican slang complete with a fake accent on much of Views and More Life.
  • The infamous "tuck my napkin in my shirt, cause I'm just mobbin' like that" from headlines. Drake basically tried to make basic table etiquette sound badass.
  • During a guest verse on J. Cole's "In the Morning", Drake dropped the questionably-written lyric "I love thick women 'cause my aunt she rode equestrian," which gave hip-hop heads everywhere pause as it implies that he either lusts for his aunt or he lusts for horses, with fans everywhere unsure of which is worse.
  • Drake's controversial "Said that you a lesbian, girl, me too" line off Certified Lover Boy. If you aren't confused by it, you probably ended up laughing thanks to its completely straight-faced delivery.
  • In a rare example of the beat being narmy, the squeaky bed noise that played throughout "Currents" was found by many to be silly rather than sexy, with some even comparing it to the squeaky boots from Spongebob Squarepants.^note It also doesn't help that people also found part of the melody of "Currents" to resemble the "Spongebob Spongebob Patrick Patrick" meme, only furthering the comparisons to the show.
• Narm Charm: "Hotline Bling" is undisputably Drake's most popular song ever, despite (and in part because of) its narm-y parts and video.
• Older Than They Think: We've had the saying, "you only live once," since 1937 and possibly longer ago, even in music. Suicide Silence fans were annoyed with the large amount of Drake fans turning up on the video of their 2011 song with abusive comments. Especially considering singer Mitch Lucker's death in 2012.
• Refrain from Assuming:
  • "Karaoke" isn't called "If You Gotta Go".
  • "Dreams Money Can Buy" isn't called "Don't Fuck with Me".
  • "Make Me Proud" isn't called "I'm So Proud of You".
  • "Headlines" is not called "They Know".
• Retroactive Recognition: For his younger fans especially, who may not have watched Degrassi: The Next Generation while he was on that show.
• Signature Song: Drake has had many chart topping hits to his name, but these songs stick out the most:
  • "Best I Ever Had": His Breakthrough Hit and one of 2009’s biggest songs.
  • "Hotline Bling": The music video went viral and was subject to a number of memes.
  • "One Dance": His first #1 on Billboard as a lead artist and the top summer song of 2016.
  • "God's Plan": His second #1 on Billboard as a lead artist; due to record-breaking stream numbers, a heartwarming music video, and (once again) memes.
    • "The Motto" also deserves a mention for starting a popular meme (noticing a pattern here?): YOLO.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: "Wednesday Night Interlude". Everything from PARTYNEXTDOOR's singing to the ethereal harmonization.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Over". The chorus is surprisingly depressing because he knows his fame is one day going to die out.
  • "Marvins Room" is pretty depressing as well, no matter whether Drake comes off as rightfully heartbroken or just pathetic.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: "Hotline Bling" is supposed to come off as being from the viewpoint of someone who had a deeply disappointing end to a relationship and can't stop being reminded of how their ex seems to be doing so much better than them, but instead makes the protagonist (presumably Drake) come off as whiny, clingy, and controlling, and the bridge in particular approaches Stalker with a Crush territory with some painfully misogynistic overtones. Instead of "why did it have to end like this?", it comes off as being more a case of "you became your own person and moved on and that's unacceptable".
• Wangst: Drake gets flack for falling into this when describing his vulnerable side with women, many finding that he just comes off as unnecessarily clingy and borderline possessive. Just for one instance, a specific yet recurring lyrical trend (seen in songs like "One Dance" and "Portland") is him bemoaning how girls don't respond to his texts as soon as he'd like — not for never responding, but for not responding immediately.

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