{"id":679094,"date":"2026-05-19T06:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T06:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/679094\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T06:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T06:27:09","slug":"drake-maid-of-honour-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/679094\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake: MAID OF HONOUR Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jamaican patois is back on the Popcaan<\/a> dancehall cut \u201cAmazing Shape,\u201d and while they\u2019ve made better songs together before, the groove is smooth and he\u2019s got just the right amount of dick puns: \u201cYou could make a dead man rise,\u201d Drake sings, a little flat but still catchy. He found a new muse via his TikTok For You Page in viral rapper Stunna Sandy, who I never thought of as anything more than an Ice Spice<\/a> variant, until \u201cOutside Tweaking,\u201d where she sounds like a star flirting with Drake over the lush Jersey club breakdown like he\u2019s the middle-aged trick at the bar buying all her drinks. No idea why he\u2019s wailing over distorted guitars about his girl getting too fucked up and passing out on the bathroom floor on \u201cPrincess,\u201d like a 16-year-old with an XXXTentacion<\/a> poster on his wall, but I take it as Drake putting his my dreams of being cool forever are slipping away anxieties on wax. I approve of dropping coming-of-age whinefests at almost 40.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t even bother listing all of the producers on MAID OF HONOUR because it seems to have been made by an entire roster led by Gordo, but with so many contributors reinterpreting all of these regional dance trends, some of the sounds are flattened. The Brazilian funk of \u201cQ&A\u201d has none of the edge, sounding more like the sexy drill rip-offs; with his unlimited budgets, he could surely fly out DJ Ramon Sucesso<\/a> or whoever and get the real thing. The same for the Chicago juke rap of \u201cTrue Bestie,\u201d where the tempo feels far too slow.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, that\u2019s not a bigger issue, for the most part, the beats scrap together samples and loose instrumental parts into collagist club beats that remind me of reading about the early \u201980s Miami park battles of Uncle Luke\u2019s Ghetto Style DJs. Back then, Luke\u2019s trick was stitching together elements of the music they sponged up all around South Florida into their mixes to try to shock the crowd: Latin music tempos, reggae basslines, and eventually, the booming 808s passed down when Queens production pioneer Marley Marl came to town.<\/p>\n

Even if it isn\u2019t Drake turning the knobs himself, the production seems personal and specific to him\u2014it\u2019s also completely unpredictable. The moody So Far Gone<\/a>-era atmosphere of \u201cHoe Phase\u201d that erupts into a high-octane sample of Afro-Rican\u2019s \u201cGive It All You Got,\u201d and then finishes with a spooky Afrobeats rhythm; the near-Mantronix<\/a> electrofunk pulse of \u201cBBW\u201d that incorporates a blown-out techno palette Drake might have picked up at his night out at Berghain<\/a>. This is the music of a man with nothing to lose, who feels the end of the run coming for him and is trying to stave it off, just a little longer, by any means necessary. He gets at that notion on \u201cNew Bestie,\u201d a classic Drake breakup anthem that could be interpreted to be about his crumbling relationship with hip-hop: \u201cI don\u2019t know when and how to tell you goodbye,\u201d \u201cYou make me do things that jeopardize my pride.\u201d He sounds more hurt by the possibility of losing his spot than he ever did about losing Lorraine<\/a> or Bria<\/a> or Erika<\/a>. It\u2019s ridiculously over the top. Unearned self-pity that is as manipulative as it is a little moving. That might not be the Drake we get so much of anymore, but that\u2019s the Drake I\u2019ll remember.<\/p>\n