Whether it’s actually an album or a mixtape, Drake’s semi-surprise release If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late has made a splash in the landscape of early 2015, a year already marked with so much great music it’s hard to keep up, and for good reason. The Drake of If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is a rapper at the peak of his popularity and talent, dropping suave, brag-laden verses in the same breath that he taunts and bites back at those who’ve done him wrong. It’s a familiar hip-hop narrative that has basically defined the genre for three decades, the difference here being that Drake, unlike his equally braggadocious contemporaries, isn’t posturing when he says he’s on top of the mountain. The truth is in performance: who else could land a number one album with a mixtape?
It also says a lot that Drake is still revamping his style with every release. He’s far from a gangsta rapper, but If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late is embellished with the same dark tones of genre classics like Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die and Mobb Deep’s The Infamous, albums fueled by the paranoia and isolation borne out of unmitigated success and the knowledge that somebody is always out to get you. Drake lets out his nervous suspicions on “Energy”, claiming, “I’ve got enemies, got a lot of enemies / Got a lot of people trying to drain me of my energy” over Boi-1da’s dark, ambient piano chords. Later, on “Now & Forever”, he expands on his emotional state in a fragile croon: “I’m afraid that I’m gonna die before I get where I’m going / I know I’m gonna be alone / I know I’m out on my own”. It’s more sinister than anything you’d expect the artist behind “Best I Ever Had” to attempt, but it fits this stage of his career perfectly. As the adage goes, it’s lonely at the top.
Still, fans will appreciate that Drake’s earliest influences and the same restrained, murky template that endeared on the rapper’s 2013 album Nothing Was the Same are re-employed here, but taken even further. Kanye West’s cold and minimalist 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak proved to be an essential influence on Drake’s early career — specifically the auto-tuned melodies and synth-heavy beats of the mixtape and EP versions of So Far Gone — but with its bitter, repetitive production, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late might be the record’s closest heir yet. Songs with a melodic throughline are rare — the PARTYNEXTDOOR-featured “Preach” and “Wednesday Night Interlude” add some futurist R&B vibes to the middle of the mixtape but it’s far from a recurring motif. The production is so restlessly somber that it almost becomes draining. Hooks converge in and out of verse rhymes, infectious but muted, lending a sense of tension to the song structures.
Overall, the tracks on If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late are far from the theatrical, late night party anthems that made Drake’s name early on, even going a step further into swampy minimalism from the understated production on Nothing Was the Same. For perhaps the first time in his career, Drake has reached a synergy between beats and rhymes that feels cohesive and meaningful from track one to the tape’s end.
With Drake’s next full-blown album on the horizon, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is an encouraging omen of transformation and evolution. Having satisfactorily built his way to the top, Drake’s main concern now seems to be maintaining his status for as long as possible, resulting in some of the most intricately psychological and personally motivated songs in his catalog. Drake may not have exactly started from the bottom, but now that he’s here, he’s more interesting than he’s ever been.