Released on September 24, 2013,
through OVO Sound, Young Money Entertainment, Cash Money Records and Republic Records.
Yes, all right, it’s Drake. So for more than an hour, we get whining, blubbering and moaning, delivered in his thin, duckling-like voice, with its air of contrived sadness, over syrupy, limp music.
These are sometimes the themes of rap, only commandeered by a guy who has nothing to do with them: when this former TV star claims he started from nothing (“Started From The Bottom”); when this Canadian proudly lays claim to a connection with Houston (“Too Much”); and when ego-trip self-aggrandizement, in his hands, turns into humorless, navel-gazing confessionals instead of an excuse for delicious wordplay and gleeful provocation. There are a thousand reasons to want to slap him. Hard.
Nothing Was The Same is a diary telling us all about Drake’s relationships with his mother, his father, his uncle and, above all, his exes – stories we quite frankly could not care less about. And yet, released at the height of his critical and commercial triumph, this third album is also aiming for something else. As foreshadowed by “The Motion” – that lovely track released beforehand, then added to the end of the Deluxe edition, on which Drake the singer and Drake the rapper are perfectly balanced – it is the latter who is trying to assert himself here.
Nothing Was The Same is meant to be the Canadian’s rap album: his most abrasive, rough-edged and, at times, darkest. The one he places, no less, under the aegis of the Wu-Tang Clan, referenced on “Wu-Tang Forever” (even though the track sounds nothing like the Staten Island group) and sampled again on “Pound Cake.” The one where he makes a real effort to rap, as on what is, in my humble opinion, Drake’s very best song. The defiant “Worst Behavior” is a genuine rap track, complete with snippets of “Mo Money Mo Problems,” but DJ Dahi gives it an almost experimental twist with his odd samples and strange trap music rhythms.
Experimental, in fact, is a fair description of almost the entire album. And deep down, that may be its most remarkable quality. Over the long runtime of a record on which Drake is more or less the only rapper – Jay-Z and Birdman are the only guests, joined by 2 Chainz and Big Sean on the Deluxe edition – he and his main producer, Noah “40” Shebib, draw us into languid, listless, melody-light compositions that often run long, sometimes unfolding in several movements without a chorus in sight. And they have the nerve to do this right from the opening track, “Tuscan Leather.” In truth, it is surprisingly unconventional music for such a mainstream release, one supposedly packed with hit singles.
It is sluggish, long, contemplative and sometimes minimalist. That is true when Drake goes off on introspective excursions such as “Too Much,” with Sampha’s vaporous vocals, but also when he launches into his most obnoxious boasts, as on “Started From The Bottom”; when he shoots his mouth off and tries to establish himself as a rapper on “The Language”; or when he indulges in yet more braggadocio alongside 2 Chainz and Big Sean on “All Me.” The music turns into a strange kind of sludge when Drake tells us the story of a stripper over the faux chopped & screwed sound of “305 To My City,” or when the dreary Jay-Z collaboration “Pound Cake” drifts along on an ethereal female vocal, with a sample of “C.R.E.A.M.” thrown in for good measure.
With the exception of the pretty pop song “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” the overlong Nothing Was The Same is made up of hazy, amorphous music. Music that, in the end, suits Drake’s confessions. Music that takes us exactly where this egotistical personality wants us to go: into the winding corridors of his mind. It is hard to decide whether this album belongs among those rap classics whose covers, like this one by Kadir Nelson, feature the portrait of a child. Still, this bloated soufflé may just be the insufferable Canadian’s best album.
P.S. Below is the album’s alternate cover.
