{"id":431128,"date":"2026-05-16T21:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T21:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/431128\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T21:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T21:53:10","slug":"drake-is-still-chasing-ghosts-on-his-three-album-megadrop-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/431128\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Is Still Chasing Ghosts on His Three-Album Megadrop: Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drake<\/a> desperately wants us to remember. The Canadian hip-hop behemoth is so focused on getting listeners to hark back to his glory days that he released<\/a> not one, not two, but three albums in a single night: Iceman, Maid of Honour, and the inexplicably-titled Habibti.<\/p>\n

At 43 tracks and two-and-a-half hours, the three projects feature an at-times angsty and always deeply-nostalgic Drake. He reaches back for the Blog Era days (\u201cFirm Friends\u201d), when times were simpler. He spins the block on all the women who thought he hated them (see: the entirety of Maid of Honour and Habibti). And he perplexingly brings the Kendrick Lamar beef<\/a> back up, again and again, in addition to other disses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Altogether, the trio of albums amount to a complete Drake experience, for better and for worse. Iceman is Drake\u2019s hardest solo rap album in years, and it brims with tough talk and why-I-oughtas (\u201cWhisper My Name\u201d), which doesn\u2019t really make sense anymore. Not to be outdone, Maid of Honour will likely get the most play this summer, thanks to the house-meets-dancehall stylings of the record (\u201cWhich One,\u201d \u201cAmazing Shape\u201d), which Drake has previously experimented with on tracks like \u201cControlla\u201d and projects like Honestly, Nevermind. Meanwhile, the R&B-steeped Habibti is lost at sea, buoyed only by the predictable, but effective, \u201cWNBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below, Consequence reviews Drake\u2019s three new albums through 21 key takeaways from his latest sprawling release.<\/p>\n

01. Drake Feels Like He Walked Away Unscathed<\/p>\n

Drake hasn\u2019t absorbed the trauma of what he\u2019s been through. I can understand why, the poor thing, but it\u2019s becoming a bit of a problem. His output is mirroring his lack of self-reflection. In particular, Iceman is Drake\u2019s unearned victory lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlot twist, the owl never sees the cage,\u201d he raps on \u201cMake Them Remember.\u201d \u201cThe owl only wakes up to seize the day.\u201d Similar to an owl not having the perspective to know that it\u2019s in a cage, Drake lacks general self-awareness, which would really help him to process the fact that he walked away with more scars than he\u2019s willing to admit.<\/p>\n

02. He\u2019s Still the Same Drake From the Blog Era Days<\/p>\n

If you journey back to Drake\u2019s second mixtape, 2007\u2019s Comeback Season, you\u2019ll come across a song called \u201cThe Presentation.\u201d On it, Drake sounds absolutely giddy as he breaks down his clever bars. \u201cI\u2019m perfecting my craft using more cess\/ Tryna make some cheese off a single is a process\/ Get it? Kraft, single, cheese, process?\/ Sit back and admire the talent that I possess.\u201d<\/p>\n

He revisits that playful energy on \u201cMake Them Remember\u201d: \u201cAs for these other suckers that\u2019s tucked away\/ I\u2019m down to put bills on they face\/ No wonder why they been duckin\u2019 Drake\/ Bills on they face, no wonder why they been duckin\u2019 Drake? Ah.\u201d He doesn\u2019t sound as exuberant as he once did \u2014 if anything, he sounds exasperated \u2014 but Drake is still a fan of his pen. (Or his writers\u2019 pen.)<\/p>\n

03. He\u2019s Beyond Ready to Get Out of His Deal<\/p>\n

Drake is so damn tired of UMG. He says as much throughout Iceman. On the 21 Savage-assisted \u201cB\u2019s on the Table,\u201d he asserts that he\u2019s \u201cfighting the man, not suing the rapper,\u201d an allusion to Kendrick Lamar. \u201cMake Them Pay\u201d sees the MC arguing, \u201cFuck it, I\u2019ll battle the label, fuck it, I\u2019ll battle the majors, I\u2019ll battle the stations \u2019til my ass is back in rotation.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a dismissal<\/a> last year, Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit against UMG is in appeal. It\u2019s widely speculated<\/a> that Drake dropped three albums at once because he wants to fulfill his deal with the music company. If it\u2019s true, we\u2019ll find out shortly. Then we\u2019ll finally hear from an independent Drake. I\u2019m actually looking forward to that more than sitting with these three albums.<\/p>\n

04. He\u2019s Sending a Message with Production<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s right-hand man 40 is the usual mastermind behind his albums, and he may very well still be in an executive producer role here. But Drake\u2019s ear is forever to the streets, and he works with numerous up-and-coming and established producers across the three albums. Notably, Drake called on \u201cBay Area sound architect\u201d P-Lo, who produced \u201c2 Hard 4 the Radio.\u201d In addition to the producer himself, Drake also nods to the West Coast by interpolating \u201cToo Hard For the Fuckin Radio,\u201d by the late Mac Dre.<\/p>\n

Oakland-born rapper and producer Ovrkast. also landed placement on the highly-anticipated Iceman. His efforts can be heard on \u201cMake Them Pay,\u201d which samples soul singer Deniece Williams\u2019 ethereal 1976 track \u201cFree.\u201d \u201c2 Hard 4 the Radio\u201d and \u201cMake Them Pay\u201d are two of the centerpieces of the entire rollout, and it speaks volumes that Drake sought out West Coast producers to make his loudest statements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drake desperately wants us to remember. The Canadian hip-hop behemoth is so focused on getting listeners to hark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-431128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}