With hours notice on Thursday, the popular Toronto rapper and singer announced the same evening release of his seventh album, Honestly, Nevermind. Another surprise: it is essentially a record of house music on which he resumes his sullen tone to hum the loneliness and the doubt which, apparently, characterize his love life. Easy and pleasant to listen to, Honestly, Nevermind is however a redundant album from a world star unable to renew his speech.
Decidedly, Drake is irrecoverable: even on a dance floor, he pouts. Only one of the fourteen new songs takes him back to rapping – jimmy cooks, collaboration with 21 Savage, lodged at the very end. After the brief instrumental intro, the house tempo runs through the album from start to finish. It doesn’t make the taciturn Torontonian want to feast either, who even seems to have lost his melodic flair as we will retain above all the rhythmic character of this album rather than its refrains.
At first listen, the artistic choice could surprise, but it would be to forget that Drake has repeatedly put his voice on dancing electronic rhythms. Let us remember the successes like the excellent Too Good with Rihanna and one dancetaken from the album Views (2016), or passion fruitfrom the mixtape More Life (2017).
Nothing really new, we have already heard him ride this kind of groove, although never on a whole album which thus suggests the lightness of mild summer evenings. The touch is the same as on the hits mentioned above: delicately presented electronic percussion, minimalist bass lines, a few synth chords with meticulously chosen sounds, and the occasional electric guitar (on Overdrive) or ornamental flamenco (Tie That Binds).
His house breathes as could the deep house of the 1990s to which he refers a lot, except for the most robust Stickyon a rhythm inspired by the bounce sound of New Jersey, or even Massive, in homage to the classic Chicago house sound, synthetic piano chords as a bonus. And always, Drake sings in that restrained voice – too much, at times seeming disinterested in his own heartaches or existential questions.
The Torontonian has brought in former collaborators, including stalwart songwriter and producer Noah “40” Shebib and South African Black Coffee (winner of the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album a few months ago) promoted to co-producer. Drake thus embraces, but subtly, the new electronic music of the African continent (we generalize by naming them “afrobeats”) which, for a few years now, have been experiencing a meteoric rise on the pop planet. Note also the collaboration of Montreal composer Kid Masterpiece, who signs the instrumental intro and brings his touch to Flight’s Bookedone of the most dreamy of the album with downhill.
Honestly, Nevermind includes another Quebec reference, in the text of Sticky (raped more than sung, this one): “ My mama wish I woulda went corporate / She wish I woulda went exec’/ I still turn to a CEO so the lifestyle she respect / Ay, two sprinters to Quebec / Chérie, ou est mon bec? Putting these verses in context wouldn’t make them any better, unfortunately (in addition to the women, there’s mention of jewelry and hints at Young Thug’s incarceration), but that’s the whole point: this record is very enjoyable listening, but lingering over the lyrics, we find nothing there that he hasn’t already served us on one of his six previous albums.
And it’s heartbreaking. Drake was 23 when his debut album was released. Thank Me Later. He’s 35 today, but in his recent songs he doesn’t seem to have grown, evolved, or found any other themes to explore than those of women (whether he seduces or leaves), lust and success. His poetry by numbers written by drawing words drawn from a Vuitton bag has become so predictable and boring…