This time—three albums in, at the age of 26—the stakes seem highest of all, because Drake wants the crown. Album sales, critical acclaim, street cred. If unintentional, his timing is uncanny, because both Kanye West and Jay-Z have new albums coming out just before his, which means this summer will say a lot about the current state of rap. There’s Kanye, the trailblazer, who’s churned out some of the genre’s most radio-ready hits this past decade. But on his new album, Yeezus, he’s gone dark and aggressive and chosen not to release an official radio single. Then there’s Jay-Z, who morphs a certain street hustler’s cool and indifference into CEO extravagance. But for all his prominence, Jay-Z hasn’t written a lot of crossover hits. Which leaves Drake, who’s staked out an interior space all his own, willing to rap and sing (he gets a lot of attention for doing both) about love and desire, loneliness and isolation. At the moment, Drake is also, unquestionably, the most radio-friendly—his voice has been a constant presence on the airwaves in recent years, on his own hits and those he’s gifted to other artists. It’s wildly competitive; they each want to be number one. And—here’s the crazy part—Drake is the favorite.
This is Drake’s constant quest, to search out that emotional connection, even in a crowd of 18,000. That’s both his power and, according to his Internet parodists and haters, his Achilles’ heel: his willingness to show emotion, to write revealing, autobiographical lyrics, and on occasion, between the rapper tropes of bravado and materialism, to demonstrate a flash of moral conscience in a game of misogynistic excess. And for his trouble, he’s been called a “counterfeit rapper” (Ludacris), “a fuckin’ piece of shit” (DMX), and “a straight pussy” (Lil’ Kim), and cajoled to “come out the closet” (Chris Brown). Common rapped: You so black and white, trying to live a nigga’s life… / You ain’t wet nobody, nigga, you Canada dry. And that’s coming from Common.
“You notice they don’t criticize the music itself, though,” says Drake about his detractors. “I’m okay with that.”
Right now, Drake says, he feels like a boxer in training before the main event. “You know the way fighters don’t fuck before the fight?” he says. “Sometimes I feel like I’m so focused on training my body and getting my mind right to create this album that sex isn’t one of my main priorities. If someone is around that I know and trust, I’m down. But I’m not going to end up with some stranger at this party.”