The Iceman Cometh And The Results Are So Boring, Y’all

Let’s get this out of the way: I am not a Drake hater. 

I was there for Comeback Season and So Far Gone. Thank Me Later, Take Care, and Nothing Was The Same were the soundtracks to my college years. From 2007 to 2016, I was actually quite a big Drake fan. I even saw him in concert a few times!  

I give this pretense to let it be known that if Drake dropped some straight heat, I would gladly give him his flowers. But perhaps appropriately, Drake’s much hyped Iceman has left me cold. Making matters worse, the man had the audacity to release the albums Maid of Honor and HABIBTI on the same night.

This man dropped 43 songs all at once and couldn’t even do us the courtesy of making them good or, at the very least, memorable.  

We cannot talk about current-day Drake without first looking back to the ancient days of 2018. Drake’s first L came at the hands of Pusha-T that year, after Push went for the jugular and revealed that Drake had a secret son, effectively ending their beef before he could even begin. The beef derailed Drake’s deal with Adidas and delayed his upcoming album Scorpion. 

When Scorpion eventually came out, it was neither a scorched-earth response to the beef nor a defiant triumph. Instead, it laid the groundwork for what would become of Drake’s output over the last decade: bloated, mostly boring albums with only one or two songs he shows up on. 

We also cannot talk about current-day Drake without looking back on the ancient days of 2024, when Kendrick Lamar popped out and caught a body like John Stockton. Whereas Pusha won the beef by effectively going Maury Povich on Drake’s ass, over four tracks, Kendrick was surgical with it. He baited Drake with “Like That,” eviscerated Drake’s ability as a rapper on “Euphoria,” outlined all the ways he fails as a man on “Meet The Grahams,” before outright calling the man and his friend a bunch of pedophiles on “Not Like Us.”

Which, you know, isn’t helped by the fact that Drake has a loooot of sus bars (“Sierra Canyon parking lot looking like Magic City parking lot” is a weird thing to say about a high school.)

Kendrick decisively won the beef, and his victory lap included several Grammys and a Super Bowl halftime show. Drake has mostly laid low since dropping Some Sexy Songs 4 U with PARTYNEXTDOOR last year, and filing lawsuits so he can relitigate his L in court.

Clearly, Drake is not over the beef because so much of the lyrical content on Iceman is Drake relitigating his L on wax. His reunion with Future is titled “Ran to Atlanta” in reference to one of Kendrick’s lines on “Like That.” Track after track has some reference to the beef, his insecurities stemming from it, and boasts that he’s still the GOAT, even if he’s not so confident in that statement anymore. 

Which, like, fine, but he could’ve made that journey compelling. What am I supposed to do with bars like “I need compliments ‘cause lately it’s just falling-outs and disagreements, industry is really evil?”  How am I supposed to look at a bar like “they was at my birthday when I was searchin’ big-booty ebonies,” and not ask “why were you doing that at your birthday?” Drake was supposed to be music for the girlies to dance to, and now he’s scaring the hoes. 

Twitch streamer ShawnCee summed up the listening experience best by asking, “Where are the bangers?” Even Drake’s worst albums usually have one or two songs that stand out. I’m thinking “Nice For What” on Scorpion, “Jimmy Cooks” on Honestly, Nevermind. Hell, I’d have even taken a “Fair Trade” from Certified Lover Boy.  

I’m trying not to be mean here, y’all, because the entire listening experience was just sad. Each track on Iceman just drives home the feeling that Drake probably should’ve gone to therapy instead of the booth. With this trio of albums, I guess Drake did accomplish something in showing what it sounds like when a rapper is completely checked out of their job.

It’s not all bricks, I guess? “Hoe Phase” on Maid of Honor has some much-needed energy, Sexxy Red’s feature on “Cheetah Print” is a funny play on the cha-cha slide, but the overall feeling is that Drake has lost his fastball. The hooks don’t hit, and there’s no passion in the bars. Dropping 43 songs and having five (and that’s being generous) stand out is such a fascinating, self-inflicted L.

What I find interesting in all this is that in taking this approach, Drake has yet again proven Kendrick right. Drake is no longer a good enough artist to take the charts on bars alone, and clearly, he knows it. The power move would’ve been to drop an all-killer, no-filler 10-track album where Drake reminds everyone why he dominated the game for so long. Instead, he chose to flood the zone with so much music that it’s inevitable some of it’s going to chart simply due to his most devout fans and folks listening out of curiosity. 

Will Drake win the numbers game in the short-term? Of course. It’s Drake. But is anyone going to remember any of these songs by the fall? I’m doubtful. Honestly, it kind of makes me understand why Drake sounds so disinterested in his work. If I had to pump out 43 tracks of straight mid just to stay relevant, I’d probably be over it too. 

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