{"id":671326,"date":"2026-05-14T22:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/671326\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T22:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:47:12","slug":"the-stakes-have-never-been-higher-for-drake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/671326\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stakes Have Never Been Higher for Drake"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter running laps around his competition for 15 years when it comes to the charts, Drake\u2019s legacy as rap\u2019s most accomplished hitmaker is solidified. His name will forever be etched into the rap history books, even before last summer\u2019s (almost) Battle of the Big 3<\/a> put a blemish on his stellar career and changed how a lot of fans view his standing as one of the game\u2019s premiere rappers. And yet the expectations remain lofty when it comes to his upcoming ninth solo album.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tIceman<\/a> feels just as monumental as his sophomore effort Take Care was in 2011 \u2014 after his 2010 official debut LP Thank Me Later, while decent, failed to meet the bar that he set for himself with 2009 breakthrough mixtape So Far Gone. It doesn\u2019t help that he\u2019s been ramping up the Iceman hype for a year and some change now, via various Iceman references on his Instagram accounts, three livestreams, \u201ciced-out\u201d seats<\/a> at Toronto Raptors home games and an ice sculpture he was forced to take down<\/a> because it was becoming a public nuisance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, after all that, Iceman will finally see the light of day on May 15. Fans and critics alike expect nothing short of a bona fide classic \u2014\u00a0or a \u201cLuther\u201d type hit that will rule the charts for more than a couple weeks as he\u2019s been known to do before this whole Big 3 debacle popped off (or at least another \u201cNokia\u201d to threaten to rule the summer). If Jigga is the Mike Jordan of Recordin\u2019 and Kenny is Compton\u2019s Prince, then Drake is most certainly the Mike Jackson<\/a> of Rap when it comes to hitmaking. Even the biggest Drake hater would have to concede that fact, being that he\u2019s currently tied<\/a> with the King of Pop for most No. 1s for a male solo artist in history \u2014 and with Michael\u2019s music once again swarming the chart, some may take it as a sign that Drake SZN is once again upon us.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, he hasn\u2019t put out a universally lauded project since 2017\u2019s More Life, and has put out mostly unimpressive music since losing the battle to Kendrick Lamar<\/a> in 2024 \u2014 which has included a slew of singles, loosies and a joint album with fellow OVO artist and collaborator PARTYNEXTDOOR<\/a>. As an outside observer, it feels like he\u2019s been trying to find his footing post-feud, as he\u2019s mostly taken a hit in the court of public opinion and on the charts over his decision to file suit<\/a> against his label UMG over the impact \u201cNot Like Us\u201d has had on his psyche. While he and PND managed to land at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and had songs from $ome $exy $ongs 4 U hang around the top 40, none of those records reached No. 1 \u2014\u00a0as he\u2019s long been accustomed to doing \u2014 and his \u201ccomeback\u201d single, the Iceman-leading \u201cWhat Did I Miss?\u201d also topped out at No. 2 on the Hot 100.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s not the first rapper to struggle at getting over a loss. Jay-Z<\/a> continued to shoot at Nas<\/a> on the Blueprint 2 a year after \u201cEther<\/a>\u201d shook up the game. However, Jigga\u2019s defeat didn\u2019t feel as monumental; his cultural cachet remained the same and he released records like The Black Album, American Gangster, and Watch the Throne (considered classic by some), continued to make hits, and while his ego may\u2019ve been bruised, his overall status surpassed his peers. Meanwhile, Drake and his fans have been forced to reckon with the constant memeing and mood-boarding on IG \u2014 while he continues to take shots at Dot (who has since moved on with his life) and align himself with controversial streamers like Adin Ross and Akademiks \u2014\u00a0and, of course, the UMG lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou can throw the stats, the numbers and the record sales out the window when it comes to cultural cachet, even as hip-hop has been America\u2019s leading pop culture export for some time now. Chart impact and dominance is low on the totem pole when it comes to opinions of real rap fans, especially those of a certain age and background.\u00a0The Canadian rapper has always wanted to be accepted by hip-hop culture at large \u2014 and has been, for the most part \u2014 but his pre-rap teen TV stardom has always been a point of contention for some, especially as he started to drift away from R&B-rap hitmaker to insulated, paranoid would-be crime boss the more successful he became.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s an interesting quote from Lil Wayne<\/a> during an appearance on an old ESPN podcast<\/a> back in 2015 where he talks of advising the Toronto rapper to stay in his lane and to be careful about venturing too deep into street rap waters. \u201cI was the one to tell him, don\u2019t change anything,\u201d he told Be Honest host Cari Champion<\/a>. \u201cDon\u2019t think \u2018cause you\u2019re coming over here by me you gotta start rapping \u2018bout the things I rap about. Don\u2019t do none of that. Please rap about your little TV show, whatever you wanna rap about, rap about girls, do that. That\u2019s what you\u2019re good at. It\u2019s only natural for you to come over and just think, if I\u2019m wit Wayne, I\u2019m gonna rock like Wayne. I rap about what I rap about. That was one of the main things I had to tell him from jump. Don\u2019t change anything. Don\u2019t start singing about killing nobody, don\u2019t start singing about the streets. Keep it Canadian, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDrake has long neglected to heed to that advice, and in turn alienated a sect of rap fans who appreciated his penchant to make palatable hits that refuse to believe the tough talk. For example, on songs like \u201cDiplomatic Immunity\u201d and \u201cOmert\u00e1,\u201d there\u2019s talk of ballistic reports on the former and a line where he raps, \u201ctesting me gon\u2019 have my n\u2014as testing machinery,\u201d on the latter. Then there\u2019s also the alleged Instagram DMs<\/a> that Ebro Darden shared on the first episode of The Ebro, Laura, & Rosenberg Show after they were fired from their radio morning show gig at New York City\u2019s Hot 97 where he told Darden, \u201cDie slower p\u2014y\u201d and \u201cWe got some s\u2014t for u.\u201d And some fans scratched their heads when he dropped the \u201cWhat Did I Miss?\u201d video where he\u2019s watching himself rapping as a bunch of automatic weapons are sprawled on the ground, clearly taking inspiration<\/a> from Gabriele Galimberti\u2019s book The Ameriguns. He got beat fair and square, but apparently hasn\u2019t learned his lesson or has accepted defeat. He has to come to grips that Kendrick is at the top of the mountain and now it\u2019s time for him to climb back up.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy take? I don\u2019t think he cares about being accepted by every single rap fan anymore; that remains clear by who he\u2019s been associating himself with. It\u2019s true that people won\u2019t care if the music is undeniable, but for that, we\u2019re going to have to chill out and see if he can swing back the narrative in his favor beyond an impressive first-week streaming total, which even in his diminished state, Drake could probably still put up in his sleep. This project has to be bulletproof in quality and needs to impress his harshest critics. If it\u2019s not and Iceman is as bloated and underwhelming as some of his last couple offerings? Well, he had a historic run, and all runs have to come to an end. Many fans won\u2019t take him seriously as a contender anymore, no matter how many chart entries he continues to rack up.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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\n\tFor Drake and Iceman, the stakes is high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After running laps around his competition for 15 years when it comes to the charts, Drake\u2019s legacy as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,117310,1379,9056,136],"class_list":["post-671326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-essays","tag-features","tag-genre-hiphop","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}