Toward the beginning of his new song “Janice STFU,” Drake conducts one of his customary exercises in emo theater: “You say what my work means to me will one day be the death of me / They tried to kill me once, but, darling, you just resurrected me.” It feels melodramatic, but this time, it’s fair enough. After all, someone winning song and record of the year Grammys for calling you a pedophile before performing that same diss track at the Super Bowl is as close to a codified cultural assassination as any pop star can get.
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That’s obviously the situation Drake faced following Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” a hilarious, incisive character takedown that sent Drake to the graveyard for rappers we learned to underappreciate. But there’s a plot twist: Drake never actually kicked the bucket, and, by making him an underdog for the first time since his halcyon days as a mixtape rapper, Lamar positioned him to make a spectacular comeback.
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That comeback would be “Iceman,” the album he’s been teasing since August 2024, when “Not Like Us” was still ringing off across barbecues, baby showers and rooftop parties across the country. The question on everyone’s mind in the lead-up to the project was whether it would be strong enough to wash off the stench of the rap battle and subsequent lawsuit with Universal Music Group. And while it does fall short of spectacular, it succeeds as a vindication, a dexterous if bloated project that also arrived alongside two surprise albums, “Habibti” and “Maid of Honour.”
On “Iceman,” the 39-year-old ditches platitudes in favor of pain. He’s not pantomiming sadness or paranoia or arguing with composite figures. Here, he explores the aftermath of his battle with Lamar. He aims his unsparing gaze at specific friends, family and enemies alike, taking the time to throw shots at rappers who’ve dissed him (Rick Ross and ASAP Rocky) or one-time friends who showed up at Lamar’s Pop-Out concert (LeBron James). Theatrical, nakedly transparent and relentlessly vindictive, “Iceman” is anything but icy — and that’s part of why it’s better than Drake’s later career output. The tales of supposed betrayal carry a genuine emotional weight that feels far removed from the faux introspection and sad rich guy moaning of his last three solo albums. Here, there’s a direct bloodthirstiness that can only surface when you’re facing real enemies instead of imaginary ones.
Naturally, his most potent songs are titled like commands, and he writes with a force that makes them stick. On “Make Them Cry,” his opening lines are so uncomfortable — and so precise — you can imagine his mom and pop cringing during the listening session: “I’m an only child, no one could’ve made another / I have to father my mother and treat my son’s grandfather like my older brother.”
While he can occasionally stumble into an unnecessary battle-rap simile, he remains a strong formalist: a writer who can be as incisive as he is tidy. That’s especially useful when he’s got to aim at folks who threw away their 6ix God friendship ring. In one particular sequence, also from “Make Them Cry,” Drake reflects on a friend who lied to him about how he lost his OVO chain. The friend tells Drake it was stolen, but Drake knows his friend actually sold it off because he’d fallen on hard times. While he seems to empathize, he doesn’t exactly condone the behavior: “I could never forgive such a nefarious action / I’m still healin’ my own traumas, I’ve barely adapted.”
Drake is even less forgiving when attacking his unambiguous enemies. Floating over the aqueous soul of the Flywilliums & Ovrkast-produced “Make Them Pay,” he clips Rick Ross and DJ Khaled with petty wit and efficiency. Imagine John Wick sniping two henchmen with one bullet: “Dog, I was aidin’ Ross with streams before Adin Ross had ever streamed / And, Khaled, you know what I mean / The beef was fully live, you went halal and got on your deen.”
Throughout “Iceman,” Drake threads muted soul production and maximalist trap with hooks that can be playful and condescending, or, most compellingly, emotionally desperate. Laced with a sinuous flute and militant 808s, “Whisper My Name” feels like a synchronized trudge through the desert, with Drizzy’s hook doubling as a taunt and a set of marching orders. With a mix of imperial horns and medieval flutes, first single “What Did I Miss” sounds like a dynasty under attack, while Drake’s repetitive hook scans as both exasperation and a personal call to arms.
Although Drake spends most of his time dealing with the idea of betrayal, there is at least one sign of reconciliation. After falling out with Future, who teamed up with Metro Boomin for a pair of albums seemingly dissing Drake even before the Lamar beef exploded, the two appear to have patched things up — at least enough for Future to appear on the cheekily titled “Ran to Atlanta,” a nod to Lamar’s claim that Drake pillages Atlanta’s rap culture.
As engaging as it can be at its best, “Iceman” can, at times, drift like a glacier. Mid-tempo tracks like “Make Them Know,” “Firm Friends” and “Make Them Remember” feel like alternate versions of one another. It’s evidence of someone with a lot to say, but using the same templates adds shades of monotony to an album that manages to have a propulsive hot streak for at least a dozen songs. As was the case with projects like “Certified Lover Boy” and “For All the Dogs,” it’s further proof that, for all his songwriting and curatorial instincts, Drake could stand to become a harsher self-editor.
Still, “Iceman” has enough sonic and tonal variance that it largely avoids the monochromatic purgatory of his last three solo releases. It’s by no means his best album, but it feels like one of his most honest, perhaps his most nimble since “Scorpion.” Given the uninspired overflows of his last few projects, Drake fans should probably give his rival a thank you: Lamar’s diss track was meant to be a killshot, but it might have actually been a defibrillator.
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DRAKE’S ‘MAID OF HONOUR’ IS A SEQUEL TO ‘HONESTLY, NEVERMIND’ IN ALL THE RIGHT WAYS
A cynical person might say Drake drops bloated albums for the sake of juicing streams, but it might have more to do with creative impulsivity. Since emerging as one of the defining genre-fluid artists of the 2010s, the Toronto superstar has oscillated between aesthetics like a New York Fashion Week model. On Sunday, he might be Omarion, but by Tuesday, he’ll have transformed into Burna Boy. In between that, he might cosplay as Popcaan. It’s a versatility that’s made him a global superstar, but it’s also made his albums way too crowded.
Through that lens, “Maid of Honour,” the second of three projects he released simultaneously on Thursday at midnight, might be considered a course correction. At a trim 45 minutes, the project is, essentially, a sequel to 2022’s “Honestly, Nevermind,” a dance album that fans consider to be one of Drake’s sleepers. Like its predecessor, “Maid of Honour” is a pulsing jaunt made for the heat of the dancefloor, but the differences rest in the gradients of sound. For “Honestly,” Drake grafted his vocals onto Black Coffee and Gordo house production, and while some were slaps, it fell short in part due to his limited vocal range, a non-rap songwriting approach and a lack of features.
For “Maid of Honour,” Drizzy has Gordo back on his side, producing nine of the 14 tracks, and he largely avoids the pitfalls of “Honestly” by diving into retro techno and ’80s electronic dance while teaming up with guests to fill the empty spaces that his singing can’t, often done tastefully as both the star and curator of the show. On the previously released “Which One,” he taps in with Central Cee for an Afroswing track that sounds like late-night flirtation at Tunnel Vision. He teams with Stunna Sandy for “Outside Tweaking,” skittering over Chicago juke that makes outside tweaking actually sound kind of romantic. (And just as importantly: silly.)
From there, Drake reunites with the inimitable Sexyy Red, who seems destined to be remembered as the ultimate purveyor of sexy time theme music. On “Cheetah Print,” she and Drizzy repurpose the “Cha Cha Slide” for something raunchy and unashamedly goofy: “And thеn smack that ass, smack that ass until I leave a print / I’ll smack that ass, smack that ass until it’s cheetah print.”
Shifting between footwork, juke, techno, afroswing and house, “Maid of Honour” sounds like the end of a discussion when a producer asked what kind of dance beats Drake wanted, to which he replied, “Yes.” There’s no thematic throughline besides dancing, and that’s the point. It all flows together like a DJ set without the tonal whiplash of a 32-bar revenge fantasy about sliding on his opps like the lot of “Iceman.” Its self-containedness is a charm, even though some of these tracks could have fared better by replacing some of the lesser tracks on the back half of “Iceman.” Still, even though it’s one of three albums he dropped in a single night, “Maid of Honour” stands as, ironically, a testament to the virtue of restraint.
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DRAKE’S ‘HABIBTI’ IS FOR THE R&B HEADS, TO SOMEWHAT GOOD EFFECT
When Kendrick Lamar dissed Drake on “Euphoria,” he simultaneously offered up a hilarious yet accurate way to dichotomize Drizzy’s two songwriting moods: “I like Drake with the melodies, I don’t like when Drake act tough.” Drake usually uses his solo albums to supply fans of both, but this time, he’s split the difference across three albums. On “Iceman,” we get the Drizzy that acts tough via quippy disses and scorned-rap, king self-mythology. For “Maid of Honour,” Drizzy just wants to boogie to some Gordo. And with “Habibti,” Drake turns to the melodies, tapping into the R&B well like he’s done many times before, somewhat to good effect.
The shortest of the three simultaneously released albums, “Habibti” is slow, sensuous and sometimes irresistible. If “Maid of Honour” is a Chicago house party, “Habibti” is a lap dance from that stripper he’s grown to know too well for his heart to handle. The atmospheric production distills Drizzy’s vocals with whispery intimacy, and at its sexiest, it all sounds like pillow talk in an astral plane. Fans who were hoping for a soundtrack for sexy time will be pleased with this particular album, a project that’s less for thinking and more for mood-setting.
After stumbling through some generic lonely-boy tropes, Drake serves up some charming situationship bars on “Slap the City,” which feels like a pre-breakup conversation in Sotto Sotto as Qendresa’s Aaliyah-esque runs hit the restaurant floor like teardrops. But the best moments on “Habibti” surface when Drizzy gets a little weird. Teaming up with Florida’s Loe Shimmy on “I’m Spent,” Drake glides over a bed of strings fit for daydreams, using fluctuating pitches to match Shimmy’s narcotized delirium. The track makes the question of “to trick or not to trick?” feel like a compelling existential dilemma. Elsewhere, on “Hurrr Nor Thurr,” he reteams with Sexyy Red for his strangest sex song since “Practice.” While Sexyy Red doesn’t feign to be a good singer, her sleepy bluntness supplies a contradictory charm you wouldn’t get from a conventional R&B singer.
There are some highs to “Habibti,” but the lows here can get pretty low. The strained singing and acoustic guitar on “Rusty Intro” feel like unintentional self-parody, and tracks like the PartyNextDoor-featured “Fort Worth” are a little too literal to be memorable. Drake also gets into his own way when he goes on autopilot, drifting into some placeholder playboy lyrics as he does on “Slap the City.” He’s probably just speaking his life as he sees it, but specificity is one of his best weapons, so it’s always a loss to see him discard it.
Of the three albums, “Habibti” feels the most restrained, rarely reaching the heights of the best “Iceman” or “Maid of Honour” songs. Still, Drake remains too skilled for a focused effort like this to be anything worse than “fine.” Fueled by engrossing soundscapes, warm melodies and spurts of invention, his latest is a more-than-serviceable entry into the Drake canon, so long as you’re just looking for something to hum along to.