THE CASE AGAINST DRAKE

The Hangover.

Crystal Pepsi.

Sometimes, there's validity around the hype of a new product.

Sometimes, it's just a lot of hot air.

But still people get caught up in it.


Perhaps it's the desire to see something new. But really, what's new at this point? Most new items are really just repackaged. This brings us to the case of Drake, the overhyped, best-thing-since-sliced-bread rapper/singer.


The former star of Degrassi: The Next Generation, is allegedly the subject of a million dollar bidding war between various record labels. This is sort of odd considering the music business is going downhill faster Lindsay Lohan. Essentially, he's a dying industry's perfect storm: movie star looks, sings fairly well and can rap. All the majors seem dying to hitch their star to the next big thing.

But there's a catch. With hype, there's always a catch. Lyrically, his songs are very well written. However, his flows and cadences are eerily similar to Kanye West. Additionally, he also tries to rap from a hyper-honest perspective, just like someone else. In a sense, this works from a marketing perspective. You can just bill him as a better looking Kanye. True music fans don't care too much for sound-alikes. This ruse will work on the current crop of teenagers who don't know any better. His So Far Gone mixtape has received loads of praise from critics (not this one) and artists alike. It's not bad. Clever wordplay, reminiscent of Mr. West, but the beats are a little too boring to rap over. The sparse production is reminiscent of 808s And Heartbreaks which works better for an R&B template. Plus he does some singing on it which isn't bad, but isn't certainly good. I think if you can rap and sing, focus on one and surprise us with the other (See: Pharoahe Monch and Mos Def). The last thing the world needs is some sort of Ja Rule/T-Pain (minus the vocoder) hybrid. His abilities are a little suspect because he never goes in hard on any of these limp beats.

This doesn't bode well for the next generation of hip-hop. I don't even know if I can call it that. With a few exceptions, it seems like up and coming artists are just getting worse. The competitiveness of the art of rhyming is dwindling daily. Rappers just want to shine and aren't concerned with being the best. Hopefully, all this glam rap (yes, I just coined that) will lead to some sort of underground, hardcore backlash akin to the 1977 punk movement in the wake of stadium rock. I probably shouldn't hold my breath though.