My friend rides for Drake seeing how his cousin lives next door. Dude came over to drop the CD off, i had to listen to that BS in the car heading to the store last weekend. I will admit I like some of the production but dude is a R&B singer not a rapper. His fam writes all of his rap lyrics.
gave the album a listen and dude is mediocre as hell. period. he can't sing that well, and he REALLY can't rap. he's just a bland stale hamburger from mcdonalds.
jay-z wrote drake's verse on light up right? i'd love to know the list of ghostwriters that worked on this thing.
if they swapped out drake for the dream i'd probably enjoy this record.
rapper named 'panicman' from Queens wrote all of his shit!
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
keithvanhorn said:
i get the problem with the nyt article, but what is so wrong with his music? "best i ever had", "juice", "money to blow" - these are bad commercial rap songs...as compared to what?
Listening to "Thank Me Later" is like reading the journal of a 23 year old who has always wanted to meet his idols and can't believe that he actually got into their VIP party. Each track is a different page with guests to support the theme of the entry. In the lyrics, you hear a bit of disbelief and doubt about his new reality, fawning over lost loves at the cost of new-found fame, reflection on his family life, undying dedication to the crew that has supported him, braggadocio and a middle finger to those who can't stand to see him succeed, and plenty of corny bars for the sake of bad rhyming and/or good humor.
On the album, Drake presents himself as more of a conceptual songwriter, than a rapper (which he isn't, solely). The production is solid, forward-sounding, lush, and at times, plainly gorgeous. What makes him different from other artists today is his willingness to be open and tap into his own sensitivity as a young artist from a good upbringing???he???s not trying to fool you into thinking otherwise.
If you didn't like "So Far Gone", don't expect his new material to sway you. But, if you did, you're in for a treat. The album really grows on you, typically a sign of lasting quality. Oddly enough, this isn???t a club record or even a little something to ride to. It???s still in the vein of a new artist on the scene, having creative control, free from pandering to critics or the pressure to simply do numbers. For those that even bother to suggest that Drake is a threat to hip-hop, the arguments sound ridiculous. Seriously--save your breath. The fervent search for new golden-era music will not be delayed any further by what's taking shape here. Say what you will about Drake, but you can???t say he???s not honest.
i get the problem with the nyt article, but what is so wrong with his music? "best i ever had", "juice", "money to blow" - these are bad commercial rap songs...as compared to what?
Son, when Radric Davis was released from prison in May he issued a challenge to all other rappers, he said bring your best. And what are we getting? Drake's album dropping in June, pssshhhhh.
Gucci needs to come andsavetranscend the industry. Lemons in their face watch 'em freeze up.
Money just changed everything, I wonder how life without it would go
From the concrete who knew that a flower would grow
Lookin' down from the top and its crowded below
My fifteen minutes started an hour ago
Truth over fame, you know I respect the blatant shit
When I hear talkin', I just don't know what to make of it
Hate is so familiar to me, I'm slowly embracing it
Doesn't come natural, bear with me it could take a bit
Yeah, and my dreams are who I'm racing with
You can see I'm pacin' it so that I'm always chasin' it
Wayne put me right here, that's who I get the paper with
I hope that my success never alters our relationship
Yeah, this life is something I would die for
Octobers Own, but its lookin' like July 4
I just wish they'd let you try it first
This time I'm really goin' off, fireworks
Oh, today it begins
I've missed them before, but won't miss them again
I keep having the same dream
And I think that I just realized what it means
All I see is fireworks,
All i see is fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
All i see is fireworks
All i see is fireworks
Taking off like fireworks
Taking off like oh-ah-oh-oh
I'm just such a gentleman you should give it up for me
look at how I'm placing all my napkins and my cutlery
I can tell it wasn't love I just thought you'd fuck with me
who coulda predicted love could strike now you stuck with me
Damn, I kept my wits about me luckily
what happened between us that night it always seems to trouble me
now all of a sudden these gossip mags wanna cover me
and you making it seem that it happened that way because of me
but I was curious and I'll never forget it baby
what an experience you coulda been the one but it wasn't that serious
their was smoke in the air before now its me clearing it
that felt good, all and all I learned a lesson from it though
you never see it coming you just get to see it go
yeah, I shoulda looked up in the sky at first
now I can see it in her eyes
Fireworks!
Oh, today it begins
I've missed them before, but won't miss them again
I keep having the same dream
And I think that I just realized what it means
All I see is fireworks,
All i see is fireworks
Every night it's fireworks,
Every night it's fireworks
All i see is fireworks
All i see is fireworks
Taking off like fireworks
Taking off like oh-ah-oh-oh
Everything the same but it feels different
my dad called me up knowing that I still listen
and he's still got his foot out, guilt trippin'
It's been years, though, I just learn to deal with it
For real, me and my realtor we built up a better rapport
got my mother in a place with some better decor
she searched the entire city I let her explore
and now she's sayin' she more lonely than every before
How many of our parents' marriages lasted?
I was only 5, I bet I barely reacted
I'm flying back home for the heritage classic
searchin' for that feeling, tell me where is the magic?
let's stay together 'til we're ghosts
I want to witness love, I never seen it close
yeah, but I guess I gotta find it first
that's why I'm really going off, Fireworks
Listening to "Thank Me Later" is like reading the journal of a 23 year old who has always wanted to meet his idols and can't believe that he actually got into their VIP party.
....his willingness to be open and tap into his own sensitivity as a young artist from a good upbringing???he???s not trying to fool you into thinking otherwise.
Say what you will about Drake, but you can???t say he???s not honest.
I can't say he is.
I am not trying to change your mind or even take away from this if it brings you pleasure. You genuinely like him, that's cool.
So, on the flip, I don't want to be written off as not liking him because of hate for hate's sake. And I don't think rap needs saving or is weak enough to kill.
He is truly unlistenable to me. I thought I could take a verse here and there when he guests, but I find myself fast-forwarding through his parts.
What I have read and heard til now undercuts the honesty you feel he demonstrates through his music. Chalk it up to creative license?
This awe at stardom comes across as completely bogus to me. He comes from show business and is where he is today not by chance but due to some hard business work and manoeuvring. Nothing wrong with that, that's how it's done, but this stardom, this access into the VIP Room, is no surprise to him.
It???s minor, but about his good upbringing that I guess at this point he's had to be more upfront and accurate about (and probably only a big deal to me because I'm from Toronto) - he was a clown to me from the get-go for saying he came up in the predominantly West Indian neighbourhood of Eglinton W when really he came up a few blocks to the east, in one of the city's wealthiest neighbourhoods at Bathurst and Eglinton - Forest Hill.
I have heard the new record only once and for some of it, I was counting cars to keep from going crazy. I can't see the interview you've posted, so there might be a new light shining that I haven't had the benefit of.
i don;t care what you call it, this music is just awful.
i have heard only a handful of songs but what exactly is the "honest" part of any of this? because his ghost-writers shoe-horned some personal information about him in the lyrics...they're not even good ghost-writers. the lyrics of that song posted are sub-jr. high poetry calibre.
whomever in this thread first said this is the music business at its most cynical pretty much encapsulated this entire thread.
This awe at stardom comes across as completely bogus to me. He comes from show business and is where he is today not by chance but due to some hard business work and manoeuvring. Nothing wrong with that, that's how it's done, but this stardom, this access into the VIP Room, is no surprise to him..
Local Manhattan Boy Makes Good
June 10, 2010 | ISSUE 46???23
NEW YORK???Despite his humble beginnings in a small three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, local Manhattan boy James Michael Carson has made a success of himself in the big city, sources reported.
Six years ago, Carson left his close-knit neighborhood in the affluent heart of New York City to pursue his dreams of becoming even more affluent in the city's financial district. Last week, he finally returned home.
"It makes me proud to see one of our own do so well for himself," said neighbor Janette Friedman, who remembers when Carson was just a small boy, waiting in the marble foyer of their apartment complex each morning for a livery car to take him all the way up to the Dalton School. "I always knew he was headed for big things."
In 2004, Carson, fresh out of business school and unsure what to do next, chose to leave the safe confines of home and try his luck in investment banking???a world in which he had no connections at all aside from one or two influential family friends.
With nothing in his pocket but the money his parents had put aside years ago specifically to cover all of his expenses, Carson set out to make his own separate personal fortune as a Wall Street trader.
"He was the first member of our family ever to go below 14th Street," said Carson's sister, the novelist Karen Carson-Skyles. "We are so proud of what he's managed to accomplish. It just goes to show that dreams really do come true."
"Just as they have for pretty much every generation of our family since the mid-1800s," she added.
According to Carson, many people he meets are surprised to learn he is the product of a broken home, but his parents???Carolyn Layton, a psychiatrist, and Stephen Carson, a thoracic surgeon???divorced when he was only 18. Fortunately, they continued to provide him with unconditional support, as well as nearly unlimited financial resources.
Carson chose to enroll at Columbia University, a decision that took him across Central Park and into a scary new environment he had never experienced before, except on occasional visits to Lincoln Center.
"James really shone at Columbia," recalled Professor Craig W. Harmon, who served as the young man's undergraduate adviser. "It was obvious right from the beginning that he would be successful, largely due to his pedigree, but also because he showed a willingness to do whatever was required to finish a course with at least a passing grade."
Added Harmon, "Also his grandfather had made several large donations to Columbia and we couldn't in our right minds fail him."
After graduation, Carson took a year off to "see the real world" in Europe before returning to his studies and eventually earning an MBA. The big move downtown came when he took up residence in a vacant apartment owned by his uncle Charles, a choice that ruffled the feathers of relatives who found the place wholly unsuitable for entertaining.
Despite such obstacles, Carson never let his far-flung location limit his potential: In the past three years, he's married, made $10 million, and helped engineer the failure of a major Wall Street bank.
The proud family man said Friday that he moved back to the Upper East Side because he wanted to give back to the neighborhood that had given him so much, and to that end he has donated $75,000 to the Guggenheim Museum.
"I'm just a guy who applied himself and took advantage of the myriad financial, social, and familial opportunities available to him," Carson told reporters from his hometown newspaper, The New York Times. "Sure, when I was growing up, all four of us had to crowd into one tiny breakfast nook, and maid service was only three times a week, but I'll never forget the lessons my parents and nanny taught me about hard work and perseverance."
"Namely, that it doesn't matter very much," he added.
i don;t care what you call it, this music is just awful.
i have heard only a handful of songs but what exactly is the "honest" part of any of this? because his ghost-writers shoe-horned some personal information about him in the lyrics...they're not even good ghost-writers. the lyrics of that song posted are sub-jr. high poetry calibre.
whomever in this thread first said this is the music business at its most cynical pretty much encapsulated this entire thread.
The record's not for you. You aren't supposed to like it in the first place.
Comments
Is that supposed to be a revelation?
I clearly find him to be an endlessly rewarding punching bag.
I'm posed to poast in BATMON's lavender gingham kicks thread instead?
b/w
H.E.R.M.
Is that an admission?
Ahem...they are lilac chambray, thankyouverymuch.
I'm still waiting for Batty to come up with a decent meaning for those initials.
Kanye
FISH ON!
I'M MORE THAN JUST AN OPTION
I must say, I am really disappointed with the failure of all my stans to step up and ride for their dude, now that he actually has an album out.
I'M GON' NEED YOU TO SAY SOMETHING, LI'L DUDES
And I still dont know how to access my favs?
On the album, Drake presents himself as more of a conceptual songwriter, than a rapper (which he isn't, solely). The production is solid, forward-sounding, lush, and at times, plainly gorgeous. What makes him different from other artists today is his willingness to be open and tap into his own sensitivity as a young artist from a good upbringing???he???s not trying to fool you into thinking otherwise.
If you didn't like "So Far Gone", don't expect his new material to sway you. But, if you did, you're in for a treat. The album really grows on you, typically a sign of lasting quality. Oddly enough, this isn???t a club record or even a little something to ride to. It???s still in the vein of a new artist on the scene, having creative control, free from pandering to critics or the pressure to simply do numbers. For those that even bother to suggest that Drake is a threat to hip-hop, the arguments sound ridiculous. Seriously--save your breath. The fervent search for new golden-era music will not be delayed any further by what's taking shape here. Say what you will about Drake, but you can???t say he???s not honest.
He doesn't talk about his past really at all. Maybe he does on this record?
Son, when Radric Davis was released from prison in May he issued a challenge to all other rappers, he said bring your best. And what are we getting? Drake's album dropping in June, pssshhhhh.
Gucci needs to come and
savetranscend the industry. Lemons in their face watch 'em freeze up.He definitely does on the album, in addition to other interviews that have been popping up.
Hip-hop songs?
R&B raps?
You make the call
Post-Hip Hop??
Money just changed everything, I wonder how life without it would go
From the concrete who knew that a flower would grow
Lookin' down from the top and its crowded below
My fifteen minutes started an hour ago
Truth over fame, you know I respect the blatant shit
When I hear talkin', I just don't know what to make of it
Hate is so familiar to me, I'm slowly embracing it
Doesn't come natural, bear with me it could take a bit
Yeah, and my dreams are who I'm racing with
You can see I'm pacin' it so that I'm always chasin' it
Wayne put me right here, that's who I get the paper with
I hope that my success never alters our relationship
Yeah, this life is something I would die for
Octobers Own, but its lookin' like July 4
I just wish they'd let you try it first
This time I'm really goin' off, fireworks
Oh, today it begins
I've missed them before, but won't miss them again
I keep having the same dream
And I think that I just realized what it means
All I see is fireworks,
All i see is fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
All i see is fireworks
All i see is fireworks
Taking off like fireworks
Taking off like oh-ah-oh-oh
I'm just such a gentleman you should give it up for me
look at how I'm placing all my napkins and my cutlery
I can tell it wasn't love I just thought you'd fuck with me
who coulda predicted love could strike now you stuck with me
Damn, I kept my wits about me luckily
what happened between us that night it always seems to trouble me
now all of a sudden these gossip mags wanna cover me
and you making it seem that it happened that way because of me
but I was curious and I'll never forget it baby
what an experience you coulda been the one but it wasn't that serious
their was smoke in the air before now its me clearing it
that felt good, all and all I learned a lesson from it though
you never see it coming you just get to see it go
yeah, I shoulda looked up in the sky at first
now I can see it in her eyes
Fireworks!
Oh, today it begins
I've missed them before, but won't miss them again
I keep having the same dream
And I think that I just realized what it means
All I see is fireworks,
All i see is fireworks
Every night it's fireworks,
Every night it's fireworks
All i see is fireworks
All i see is fireworks
Taking off like fireworks
Taking off like oh-ah-oh-oh
Everything the same but it feels different
my dad called me up knowing that I still listen
and he's still got his foot out, guilt trippin'
It's been years, though, I just learn to deal with it
For real, me and my realtor we built up a better rapport
got my mother in a place with some better decor
she searched the entire city I let her explore
and now she's sayin' she more lonely than every before
How many of our parents' marriages lasted?
I was only 5, I bet I barely reacted
I'm flying back home for the heritage classic
searchin' for that feeling, tell me where is the magic?
let's stay together 'til we're ghosts
I want to witness love, I never seen it close
yeah, but I guess I gotta find it first
that's why I'm really going off, Fireworks
I can't say he is.
I am not trying to change your mind or even take away from this if it brings you pleasure. You genuinely like him, that's cool.
So, on the flip, I don't want to be written off as not liking him because of hate for hate's sake. And I don't think rap needs saving or is weak enough to kill.
He is truly unlistenable to me. I thought I could take a verse here and there when he guests, but I find myself fast-forwarding through his parts.
What I have read and heard til now undercuts the honesty you feel he demonstrates through his music. Chalk it up to creative license?
This awe at stardom comes across as completely bogus to me. He comes from show business and is where he is today not by chance but due to some hard business work and manoeuvring. Nothing wrong with that, that's how it's done, but this stardom, this access into the VIP Room, is no surprise to him.
It???s minor, but about his good upbringing that I guess at this point he's had to be more upfront and accurate about (and probably only a big deal to me because I'm from Toronto) - he was a clown to me from the get-go for saying he came up in the predominantly West Indian neighbourhood of Eglinton W when really he came up a few blocks to the east, in one of the city's wealthiest neighbourhoods at Bathurst and Eglinton - Forest Hill.
I have heard the new record only once and for some of it, I was counting cars to keep from going crazy. I can't see the interview you've posted, so there might be a new light shining that I haven't had the benefit of.
i have heard only a handful of songs but what exactly is the "honest" part of any of this? because his ghost-writers shoe-horned some personal information about him in the lyrics...they're not even good ghost-writers. the lyrics of that song posted are sub-jr. high poetry calibre.
whomever in this thread first said this is the music business at its most cynical pretty much encapsulated this entire thread.
what? you weren't moved by the 'flower growing in concrete' imagery???
rolf
It's the exact same "look at me--I'm famous!" routine he always comes with.
I'll say it again: The rap Lady Gaga
I think many people mistake boring for "honest"
Local Manhattan Boy Makes Good
June 10, 2010 | ISSUE 46???23
NEW YORK???Despite his humble beginnings in a small three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, local Manhattan boy James Michael Carson has made a success of himself in the big city, sources reported.
Six years ago, Carson left his close-knit neighborhood in the affluent heart of New York City to pursue his dreams of becoming even more affluent in the city's financial district. Last week, he finally returned home.
"It makes me proud to see one of our own do so well for himself," said neighbor Janette Friedman, who remembers when Carson was just a small boy, waiting in the marble foyer of their apartment complex each morning for a livery car to take him all the way up to the Dalton School. "I always knew he was headed for big things."
In 2004, Carson, fresh out of business school and unsure what to do next, chose to leave the safe confines of home and try his luck in investment banking???a world in which he had no connections at all aside from one or two influential family friends.
With nothing in his pocket but the money his parents had put aside years ago specifically to cover all of his expenses, Carson set out to make his own separate personal fortune as a Wall Street trader.
"He was the first member of our family ever to go below 14th Street," said Carson's sister, the novelist Karen Carson-Skyles. "We are so proud of what he's managed to accomplish. It just goes to show that dreams really do come true."
"Just as they have for pretty much every generation of our family since the mid-1800s," she added.
According to Carson, many people he meets are surprised to learn he is the product of a broken home, but his parents???Carolyn Layton, a psychiatrist, and Stephen Carson, a thoracic surgeon???divorced when he was only 18. Fortunately, they continued to provide him with unconditional support, as well as nearly unlimited financial resources.
Carson chose to enroll at Columbia University, a decision that took him across Central Park and into a scary new environment he had never experienced before, except on occasional visits to Lincoln Center.
"James really shone at Columbia," recalled Professor Craig W. Harmon, who served as the young man's undergraduate adviser. "It was obvious right from the beginning that he would be successful, largely due to his pedigree, but also because he showed a willingness to do whatever was required to finish a course with at least a passing grade."
Added Harmon, "Also his grandfather had made several large donations to Columbia and we couldn't in our right minds fail him."
After graduation, Carson took a year off to "see the real world" in Europe before returning to his studies and eventually earning an MBA. The big move downtown came when he took up residence in a vacant apartment owned by his uncle Charles, a choice that ruffled the feathers of relatives who found the place wholly unsuitable for entertaining.
Despite such obstacles, Carson never let his far-flung location limit his potential: In the past three years, he's married, made $10 million, and helped engineer the failure of a major Wall Street bank.
The proud family man said Friday that he moved back to the Upper East Side because he wanted to give back to the neighborhood that had given him so much, and to that end he has donated $75,000 to the Guggenheim Museum.
"I'm just a guy who applied himself and took advantage of the myriad financial, social, and familial opportunities available to him," Carson told reporters from his hometown newspaper, The New York Times. "Sure, when I was growing up, all four of us had to crowd into one tiny breakfast nook, and maid service was only three times a week, but I'll never forget the lessons my parents and nanny taught me about hard work and perseverance."
"Namely, that it doesn't matter very much," he added.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/local-manhattan-boy-makes-good,17578/