One of the things people forget when considering albums, is that they work best in very specific scenarios. Taken out of their comfort zones they can sound silly, confusing and generally shitty. Let’s say you have an r&b/rap record about love, how should you consume it? Within that specific genre there’s a ton of variation, some joints celebrate new love, others celebrate sex, some are breakup records and then there’s records that exist entirely in the “what if” world of unrequited love. Within each of those subgenres come very specific caveats on how it should be experienced for optimal affect. Drake’s Take Care doesn’t quite fit into any of the genres mentioned above. Instead it’s a confusing mix of baseless shit talking and emotionally bare pandering. If there was a specific moment where this album would sound entirely appropriate, it would be getting dressed in your freshest outfit to checking on your ex's Facebook while sobbing gently. Simultaneously leaving vaguely poetic and emo messages on a photo of her in a bikini “…remember when we went swimming in the summer? I love’d it when your hair was still wet…” while writing amorphously boastful tweets about how you’re “killing the game.” If you’re in that very specific situation and mind frame, Take Care might be the most affecting piece of art since you saw The Notebook.
Honestly, Drake is not inherently a bad rapper. He has a simple flow that works for pop rap and more importantly he has a good ear for melody. When he’s not jocking the worst parts of Wayne’s flow he’s enjoyable. Put together, he’s essentially an A&R’s dream for pushing records. The problem is that he consistently makes records aimed exclusively at emotionally unstable dudes trying to get their swag back or Catholic schoolgirls trying to get into the head of “that cute boy from school.” If you’re not in those two camps, his lyrics come off as a bit juvenile and at times, almost intentionally bad. On this album he’s apparently taken a liking to spoken word poetry that immediately takes you out of the moment, unless you’re the type to take fortune cookie musings as profound. “May your neighbors respect you, trouble neglect you, angels protect you and heaven accept you.” Word dude.
To the album’s credit, it sounds amazing. It’s filled with beautifully composed down tempo joints that feel lush and melancholy without getting too heavy into musical melodramatics. A track like “The Real Her” takes the minimalism of Ye’s 808s & Heartbreak and cuts it with some of the slower tracks from The-Dream’s catalog. “Crew Love” sprinkles some of The Weekend’s coke dream r&b over a standard Drake track and makes a joint that sounds both appropriate for the party and the after party. If you’re lucky enough to be the type of person that can just tune out a vocalist and appreciate the mood and ambiance of the tracks, fuck with this album on some come down shit or maybe when you’re driving around in your car while thinking about heavy shit. The instrumental for “Marvin’s Room” is great for that kind of thing. “Practice” is essentially a remake of “Back Dat Azz Up” but with all the Bounce energy sucked out of it. Surprisingly, the track doesn’t sound like shit. In the hands of a dude like The-Dream it could be a pretty awesome flip talking about the downside of a relationship that’s spawned after a fine motherfucker backs that ass up. The-Dream would probably find someway to incorporate motherfucker in a really endearing way. “Shot For Me” has a beautifully haunting melody to it. Unfortunately, Take Care is not an instrumental album.
Rap works heavily on how interesting your created character is. Clipse created compellingly reflective and morally ambiguous drug dealers, Wayne created an alien pop culture savant and Ye created a former everyman who became a tortured artist/prince. All of these characters are at their base, interesting characters. You’d want to get a beer with any of those dudes. Drake’s character at best estimation, is an emotionally open dude who’s also wildly popular and successful. While that character makes for a dude who’d probably treat your sister real well and take care of her, storybook relationships are not the type of thing that makes for awesome rap songs.