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Fighter: Drake

Trainer (Gym): Birdman, 40, Slim Williams, Aubrey Graham (OVO Sound, Young Money, Cash Money, Republic Records, Universal Music Group)

Cut Men: 40, Boi-1da, Allen Ritter, Chilly Gonzales, Detail, DJ Dahi, Hudson Mohawke, Jake One, Jordan Evans, Key Wane, Majid Jordan, Mike Zombie, Nineteen85, Sampha, Vinylz

Weight Class: Rap Superstar/Lyrical Heavyweight

Notable Fire: Pound Cake/Paris Morton Music 2 (Featuring Jay Z), Wu-Tang Forever, Too Much (Featuring Sampha), Connect

Notable Trash: Own It, Hold On We’re Going Home

Tale of the Tape: After taking some significant time off (by today’s standards anyway) and after sending a few warning shots over the course of the last year, AND after setting the twitterverse on fire with his Versace flow, Drake finally made his official return to the rap game after releasing his third solo album Nothing Was The Same in late September. Interestingly (but not intentionally), this came on the heels of Kendrick Lamar setting the rap world ablaze with his verse on a Big Sean throw-away record, in which he called out…well, everyone. Including Drizzy himself.

This must have been somewhat confounding for Drake, who by his own account and others, is viewed as one of the elite acts in hip-hop. Not to mention he and Kendrick had just collaborated on Lamar’s album last year, and together created “Poetic Justice”, one of the hottest songs of 2012 (and “Buried Alive” a year before that…you forgot about that, didn’t you?). Yet Kendrick had essentially robbed Drake of some of the NWTS momentum, and didn’t seem the least bit remorseful about it.

Sidebar: Go back and listen to “Buried Alive”. Kendrick basically admits he was jealous of Drake and wanted his spot. It’s almost eerie hearing it two years later.

That seemingly set the stage for friendly lyrical competition between the game’s two biggest and most talented young stars. The Big Seans, J. Coles and Wales of the world have all tried, but none have managed to invigorate the culture and penetrate the mainstream quite like these two 26-year-olds. Hip-hop fans were preparing for these two friends turned competitors to EXPLODE, like the Mega Powers did in ’89!

Only Drake didn’t respond. And it doesn’t appear to have any intentions on doing so. Although, the two probably won’t be making any records together anytime soon.

By responding to Kendrick with a “Control” verse of his own, Drake would be feeding into to the controversy, rather than letting his new music speak for itself. Consequently, Drizzy took the high road, thus leaving a beef-starved fan base anxiously awaiting the release of his new album in the hopes that this record makes up for the fact that we all missed out on what could’ve been one of the more memorable battles on wax in rap history.

Oh, and Drake also won the Grammy for best rap album back in February for his last album, Take Care. Aside from that, there was absolutely no pressure on him to deliver on Nothing Was The Same.

“He’s definitely Kobe Bryant.”

When asked about Drake’s current place in the rap game into relation to his own, those words were uttered by Shawn Carter in a 2013 interview with Elliot Wilson. His uncanny ability to rhyme prolifically, while also singing on his own hooks better than 90% of R&B singers out here is what initially separated Aubrey Graham from the pack. The skill, coupled with the insatiable hunger for greatness earned him the comparison to the Black Mamba from “the Mike Jordan of the mic recordin'”. If there’s one thing NWTS taught us, it’s that Drizzy is more Kobe than any of us even knew.

Kobe’s uncontrollable hubris helped carry the L.A. Lakers to five championships, but even the biggest Kobe stans would admit it has also served as a detriment to the purple & gold on many occasions. NWTS was similar in that Drake’s excessive singing almost knocked this record completely out of the hip-hop category.

Sidebar: One could argue it merely contributed to the expansion of the hip-hop category. Fine. But good luck selling that to hardcore hip-hop heads.

Out of 16 deluxe edition songs, Drake sings extensively on 11 of them. It’s easy to appreciate Drake as a duel threat, but harmonizing to this extent practically forces the question of whether Drake is a rapper who can sing pretty well, or is he a singer who will rap on a track from time to time? Bone Thugs-n-Harmony were the first rappers to really popularize singing on their own records, however much of their content revolved around weed smoke and bloody murder. Juxtapose these highly “masculine” topics to Drizzy utilizing his vocals on love and love lost, and the Toronto MC opens himself up constant ridicule.

The internet can be so cruel.

To his credit, Drake is extremely aware of this ridicule and seems to be cool with it. This same talent is what made him into a star to begin with. But its over-usage on this LP cannot be overlooked. Individually, the songs aren’t bad, however they tend to run together a bit towards the middle of the album. Drake highlights these inconstant outcomes by placing “Wu-Tang Forever” and “Own It” back to back. While the former is smart spinoff of the Wu-Tang classic “It’s Yourz” — featuring Drake’s classic piano-based melody — “Own It” was a failed attempt at flipping the previous song and sounded like it was better reserved for one of The Dream’s albums.

When he decided to rap and rap only, the magic was there. One a rare occasion where Drake decided to let somebody else (Sampha) take a stab at singing on the hook, “Too Much” was created. A personal song that really exemplified what Nothing Was The Same is all about: Drake’s adaptation to super-stardom and the transformation of the environment around him with respects to how he’s now treated by those closest to him (family, former girlfriends etc.).

“All my family from the M-Town that I’ve been ’round started treating me like I’m “him” now/ Like we don’t know each other, we ain’t grow together, we just friends now/ Shit got me feeling pinned down, pick the pen up or put the pen down/ Writing to you from a distance like a pen pal, but we’ve been down.”

Sidebar: The above rhyme is from the second verse. This song’s first verse contains high levels of irony considering the Kendrick Lamar situation.

This track preceded “Pound Cake”, the official 2013 Jordan & Kobe collaboration. Though it lacked the same lyrical dexterity of the duo’s 2009 song “Light Up”, it did present the same sullen, yet not somber tone that made the initial collab special. Jay’s “cake” lines were interesting enough, and the song spawned several remixes from other established artists such as Meek Mill, The Lox and Lupe Fiasco, looking to take a swing in the proverbial batting cage.

A few hidden gems throughout keep fans engaged, such as “From Time” — which features a soulful cameo from Jhené Aiko — and “Connect”, arguably 40’s best overall production job.

Fight Night: Winner By Unanimous Decision

NTWS can best be described as incredibly adequate. From start to finish, the beats and rhymes are satisfactory; good enough by Drake’s standards to leave you fulfilled, but still lacking the completeness or staying power of his last album. Songs like “Tuscan Leather”, and the album’s two lead singles “Started From The Bottom” and “Hold On, We’re Going Home” wouldn’t have even made Take Care. Those two records in particular are incredibly redundant, to the point that they almost undermine Drake’s overall creativity as an artist.

Sidebar: “Hold On, We’re Going Home” is a essentially ballad that repeats the same eight lines over and over again. If that hook doesn’t pull you in, it’s a pretty useless record. That is, it was useless, until a young man (and former Bowling Green Falcon) spotted a young lady in a coffee shop and decided to let his instagame do the talking. Also, “Tuscan Leather” is the name of a cologne by noted designer and recent addition to hip-hop folklore Tom Ford.

Yep, called it.

The fans of the “turn up” probably weren’t crazy about this album either. Excluding the lead single for a moment, NTWS was void of any real club/whip-friendly records outside of “Worst Behavior” — which is enjoyable but not great — and “All Me”, which is only on the deluxe edition. No song on this album comes close to recreating the excitement that Drake, Rick Ross and Just Blaze produced on “Lord Knows” off his last album.

Understand that this grade alone does not tell the full story. The expectations for Drake are out of this world— expectations that he set by dominating most of the tracks he appears on and tearing down shows from coast to coast. The battle lines had been drawn between Drake and Kendrick, and though K Dot’s album predates the birth of this budding rivalry, Kendrick has now drawn first blood twice over (so, first and second blood). Once on the “Control” verse, but again by making a better LP more recently. Drake went out of his way to emphasize the importance of the music, nonetheless his attempt at making a timeless album was unsuccessful.

Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City was a better album than Nothing Was The Same, and Kendrick appears to be slightly ahead of the curve in the eyes of the culture. Drake just won Track of the Year and Video of the Year for “Started From The Bottom” and the People’s Champ Award, but Kendrick Lamar took home the Album of the Year, Lyricist of the Year and the MVP of the Year honors at the 2013 BET Hip-Hop Awards. It’s also a pretty safe bet that Kendrick will take home the Grammy for Best Hip-Hop/Rap Album in February and will therefore on some level, cause Drake to fall short of duplicating the success of Take Care.

Sidebar: Then again, Eminem is about to drop another album in a couple of weeks. Assuming he makes the cutoff date, you know what that means.

Drizzy’s influence on the rap game transcends profoundness; look no further than the success of “Started From The Bottom”— it’s an average record if any other name is attached to it. Perhaps a more appropriate basketball doppelganger for Drake is LeBron James pre 2011-12 season. Everyone knew he was a superior talent, although many were left wondering if he lacked the killer instinct necessary to become a champion. Drake genuinely seems like a nice guy, and we know he has a big heart. What we’re seeing from him and Kendrick now though may just be the beginning of a lengthy battle for hip-hop supremacy.

And if that doesn’t stoke Drake’s competitive flames, the man who said, “You know it’s real when you are what you think you are”, may not be who we all thought he was.