{"id":454802,"date":"2026-05-18T11:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/454802\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T11:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:50:17","slug":"review-of-drake-albums-iceman-habibti-maid-of-honour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/454802\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Drake albums Iceman, Habibti, Maid of Honour"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Drake, Iceman \u2605\u2605\u2605 \/ Habibti \u2605 \/ Maid of Honour \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n

Suddenly releasing three albums at once is a wild flex of your boundless creativity, a cynical strategy for streaming domination, or a way to middle-finger the record label you\u2019re currently in the midst of suing<\/a> by running out your remaining contract as quickly as possible. With his anticipated comeback, this is where Canadian superstar Drake has left us.<\/p>\n

The three albums function as a sort of \u201cpick your fighter\u201d gambit: Iceman is Drake as fallen rap superstar out for revenge; Habibti is Downbeat Drake in toxic self-pity mode; Maid of Honour is Drake as cosmopolitan pop innovator.<\/p>\n

\"WeWe expected one new album, Drake has given us three: Iceman, Habibti, and Maid of Honour.<\/p>\n

Iceman is the album we\u2019d expected, the one Drake all but had to make after his public evisceration at the hands of Kendrick Lamar during their spectacular feud of \u201924<\/a>. It\u2019s lonely and defensive, a man reckoning with being attacked from all angles.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sixth sense is kicking in \u2019cause all I\u2019m seeing is people that are dead to me,\u201d he raps on Make Them Pay. He\u2019s targeting Kendrick with short jokes (\u201cEven Muggsy Bogues dunked once,\u201d he raps on scorched earth highlight Make Them Remember), fake fans, and a wave of Judases he feels betrayed him during the summer of Not Like Us including DJ Khaled and LeBron James (\u201cYou always made your career off of switchin\u2019 teams up\u201d).<\/p>\n

If his anger and bitter paranoia is compelling \u2013 even when it\u2019s unconvincing: \u201c16 hours ahead in Melbourne, I don\u2019t even know what\u2019s going on back home, straight,\u201d he raps about being in Australia<\/a> the day Lamar\u2019s Super Bowl triumph occurred, as though the internet doesn\u2019t reach us \u2013 it\u2019s in a Unabomber-scribbling-a-hit-list-in-his-cabin kind of way.<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s in prime emcee mode on Iceman but 18 tracks of it is exhausting, like you\u2019re being subjected to a friend\u2019s endless tirades against a co-worker. Halfway through, you\u2019re making like Elsa and chanting, \u201cLet it go \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

The less said about Habibti, the better. It\u2019s a slog, Drake at his most charmless and self-pitying, sleepwalking through noxious quips he should have left in the WhatsApp chat with his manosphere bros (\u201cYou don\u2019t have a gag reflex, it\u2019s blowing my mind\u201d). We should be grateful he put them all in one place so they can be so easily avoided.<\/p>\n

\"AfterAfter his public evisceration by Kendrick Lamar, the Canadian superstar returns with a bit of everything.Getty Images<\/p>\n

Of all three, Maid of Honour is the welcome surprise. It\u2019s sprawling, experimental, weird, fun and brimming with hooks. Its outlook is determinedly global. It feels like a template for tomorrow\u2019s pop charts.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"This<\/a><\/p>\n

The pulsing house beats of Hoe Phase and New Bestie play like validation for those of us who knew Drake\u2019s late-period \u201cnight bus after the club\u201d opus Honestly, Nevermind was the right idea. The fizzy \u201980s electro of Road Trips and Stuck are destined for radio domination, while Cheetah Print turns Peggy Gou\u2019s house hit (It Goes Like) Nanana into infectious Miami bass.<\/p>\n

Even a closing emo number \u2013 that sounds like Drake holed up with a guitar in one of his mansion\u2019s 10 bedrooms to figure out how to crunch out the Pixies\u2019 Where Is My Mind \u2013 is oddly endearing.<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s often accused of being a \u201cculture vulture\u201d (or as Kendrick put it, \u201ca coloniser\u201d), but his internationalist bent is always where his best pop instincts lie. He is, after all, the guy who made the hookah lounge a staple of modern hip-hop, who might suddenly rap a verse in Spanish, Arabic, French or a Caribbean Patois. Toronto \u2013 like Sydney or Melbourne \u2013 is a city of immigrants and Drake\u2019s long lassoed its pluralist influence into his music.<\/p>\n

Maid of Honour might be the ultimate expression of Drake as cross-cultural agitator. On Which One, he vamps at the club with UK drill star Central Cee; on Amazing Shape, he works a dancehall groove with Jamaican singer Popcaan. On Hoe Phase, a sudden beat-switch incorporates South African gqom and icy EDM; on BBW, it\u2019s marauding Brazilian baile funk.<\/p>\n

In contrast to Lamar\u2019s insular Not Like Us, a NIMBY anthem for Trump\u2019s America, it makes Maid of Honour an even better revenge than Iceman. Forget going back to Cali<\/a>, Drake at his best claims the world.<\/p>\n

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\"RobertRobert Moran<\/a> is Spectrum deputy editor at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-454802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}