In 2023, it’s easy to treat Drake like a problem to be solved. With his 2011 album Take Care, the Canadian megastar began an unimpeachable run of records. He single-handedly changed the sound of pop on multiple levels, popularising glacial, minimalist production and obliterating the church-and-state separation between singing and rapping for rappers and singers. But his recent output, with the exception of the occasional transcendent single, has been profoundly tedious, the work of a musician whose once-deft vocal style and omnivorous taste had given way to empty solipsism and uninspired trend-chasing.
