It’s 17 tracks long, there’s nothing on it resembling a radio single, yet it holds together-and holds up-better than most event albums. If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late was released two days later at the stroke of midnight, and I don’t think it’s especially important whether we classify it as an “album” or a “mixtape,” although it was originally supposed to be hosted by DJ Drama. Williams was a walking bucket, in other words-wet, from everywhere suddenly, but not overly fussy or in a hurry about it. Toronto reversed a 10-point deficit, and like so many other nights in his first Sixth Man of the Year season, it felt as though Williams couldn’t miss, even though he technically only shot 50 percent. (They’d sweep Toronto in the playoffs that year.) DeMar DeRozan iced the game, but down the stretch the Raptors went to Lou Williams, who led all scorers off the bench: He walked over screens he dashed into the paint he snuck down the baseline he hit spot-up jumpers. See all his Australian tour dates below.On February 11, 2015, the Washington Wizards went to Canada with hope and left with a two-point loss to the Toronto Raptors, whom they just couldn’t seem to close the gap on in the East at the time. If You’re Reading… isn’t on a par with Drake’s ‘proper’ albums, but let it creep up on you.ĭrake kicks off his Australian tour as part of the Future Music Festival with a headline show in Drizzy, no soft touch, hits back at Tyga (“You need to act your age and not your girl’s age”) and slyly disses his hero Kanye West (!). Jungle, again provided by Shebib, is fractured soul that will endear itself to fans of Hold On, We’re Going Home, Drake’s defining pop moment.īut it’s the bonus track, 6PM In New York, with its retro ’90s Timbaland triple beat, which raises the tempo, and ante. It’s the most overtly autobiographical track. The former child star of Degrassi: The Next Generation speaks to his “mama” on You & The 6 about growing up in the T-Dot and reconciling with an absent dad. In Company (featuring Travi$ Scott) Drake confesses to being an eternal “dog”.
However Now & Forever, chronicling either the end of an affair or a deal, stands out on a collection of anti-epics as maximalist alt-R&B. Midway, If You’re Reading… risks emphasising the ‘mono’ in monologue. Weezy turns up for Used To, otherwise indistinguishable. The unexpectedly intimate song, graced by Shebib’s disembodied piano and sampling Ginuwine, is a sizzurp Justify My Love.ĭrake’s R&B protégé PARTYNEXTDOOR contributes to a handful of numbers one, Preach, nearly erupts into house. In Madonna he tells a (possibly self-serving) gal pal that she “could be big as Madonna”. More intriguing, albeit ambiguous, is Know Yourself, an autotuned Drake flipping the Delphic maxim that heralded Freudian psychoanalysis, ruminating over melancholy new wave soundscapes. On the dark Energy, Drake lashes out at his “enemies” – not merely haters but emotional vampires. Beyond that, Drake still laments money issues, the isolation of celebrity, and both fleeting romantic exchanges and dysfunctional family relationships in the social media age. If You’re Reading… is orientated to nocturnal listening – or cruising. Much of the production comes from Boi-1da. If You’re Reading… is ultra-subliminal, almost sedate, its bottom-heavy music is minimalist, abstract and with vapoury synths. If You’re Reading… references his hometown of Toronto (“the 6”), yet the theme remains (urban) existentialism.
Drizzy’s lyricism would veer closer to that of UK trip hop pioneer Tricky than any thug rapper, his preoccupations emanating from the psyche, not the street. The MC/singer departed from the hip hop template in other ways. With 2010’s debut Thank Me Later, Drake and his chief studio cohort Noah “40” Shebib introduced their own take on the post-dubstep nightbus – an amorphous electronic urban genre known as ‘illwave’ now being recorded by everybody from Beyoncé to Tim Omaji (AKA Timomatic).
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