Views // Drake

Drake: Views (2016)

Know yourself, the theory goes, and you will know all. The world will open up to you. Existence will be made plain. You will be one with the matrix. Yadda yadda yadda. From arenas to memes, Drake has always had a skill for turning his innermost thoughts, feelings, and anxieties into breakthrough group therapy sessions—he articulates what we know to be true and then lets us rap or sing those truths en masse, exalting in common bonds that are as vulnerable as they are revealing. When he confides his fears, we become a little more fearless. When he turns his woes into anthems, we all get lifted. But there is a razor-sharp line between self-awareness and self-absorption: Whereas self-awareness can expand wisdom by reflecting it outward, self-absorption often festers, drawing things in only to let them rot. For the past seven years, Drake has expertly glided along that line. But on his fourth proper album, he edges closer than ever to a mirrored abyss, a suffocating echo chamber of self.

The record is called VIEWS but its perspective is decidedly singular. “This album, I’m very proud to say, is just—I feel like I told everybody how I’m actually feeling,” Drake told Zane Lowe in a toothless recent interview, differentiating VIEWS from his previous work. This might seem like a ridiculous distinction—there’s never any question that Drake is the star of his own show—but it’s apt, and it hints at why this album feels like more of a claustrophobic mindfuck than a collective catharsis. VIEWS is what happens when venting turns into whining. Spanning an obnoxious 82 minutes, the record goes through several musical and thematic phases, but the overall atmosphere is bitter, petty, worn-down. It confuses loyalty and stagnation, wallowing in a sound that is starting to show its limits.