Happy birthday to the leader of O.V.O.: Drake. The Canadian rapper turned 38 today, Oct. 24, and it has been an eventful year for him. He gave us For The Dogs last October and then was silent until his beef with Kendrick Lamar brought him to the limelight. Since the rap beef ended, Drake has been blessing us with a few loosies here and there, but he has hinted at a new album coming before the year’s end. In celebration of one of this generation’s greatest artists, we will rank Drake’s top 5 deep cuts of the last decade.
5. “What Would Pluto Do”
On this track, Drake fooled everybody. Everyone was wondering why he would make a song about Future, AKA Pluto, and didn’t put the actual Pluto on the song. At the time, it didn’t make sense, but months later we would all find out that Drake and Future had fallen out, so instead of collaborating with Pluto, he made a diss song about Future, and only Future knew it. Peak Drake: “What, really hate a rap n*gga/Let’s not even talk about them f*ck n*ggas, f*ck them/Hit my line talkin’ about what’s up, well, what’s up then?”
4. “Do Not Disturb”
The people need a whole Drake album with a bunch of tracks like “Do Not Disturb.” Drake is at his best when he starts reminiscing on his past, and this song highlights that perfectly. For over four minutes, Drake floats over the smooth sample, giving us game and telling us why he is as successful as he is. He even managed to throw in some shots at Tory Lanez: “Whatever splits it up so there’s more for them and there’s less for me/ They don’t know they got to be faster than me to get to me/No one’s done it successfully … “
3. “Liability”
Honestly, Nevermind was the first Drake album that I had to let grow on me. But “Liability” was the one song on the album that hit for me from the first play. Drake tried something new; he made a low-fi song, and he did so masterfully. Drake has to give us a low-fi album before he calls it quits; the world needs it: “You put your words together like you getting points for that shit/Like you playing Scrabble on me/Your mama the sweetest lady, that apple fell far from the tree/Can’t you be honest about your past? Like, how hard can it be?”
2. “Days in the East”
This is a top-five Drake song. Perfect structure: three verses, each followed by the smooth chorus. On the first two verses, Drake sings or harmonizes and then gives us a magnificent final rap verse to close out the song. In that last verse, Drake gets introspective about himself and his lover, admitting the mistakes he made with her while at the same time not letting her forget all the things she would do for “the boy”: “Even as a boy, I was the boy already/So you know that that mean p*ssy galore already/Mention other girls, you get insecure already/That was in the past, I matured already … “
1.“Hours In Silence” ft. 21 Savage
Her Loss is one of the greatest collab albums ever, and the best song on there is “Hours in Silence.” We get the duality of Drake perfectly on this track. He starts the song by singing to a female listener. He’s pretty arrogant and follows it up with bars bragging about what he will do to her in the bedroom. Then the beat changes, and we get the simp Drake, the Drake that gets played like a fiddle. The best part about this last verse is that Drake knows that he’s going over and beyond for this girl, and she doesn’t deserve it at all: “You’re actin’ like a bride-to-be/Behind closed doors, slimin’ me/Friends are all advisin’ me/Sayin’ I could die tryna turn you up … “
