Pivoting from different moods and genres, More Life might feel a little scattered but not so dissimilar to a mixtape or hitting “shuffle.” Due to its multifacetedness, More Life‘s highlights will depend on what kind of Drake listener you are. The genius to label More Life as a playlist, rather than an album, highlights and actually benefits from and with Drake’s slippery persona. He’s an actor, engaged in goofy Dad humor one instance and acting like Toronto’s answer to Nas the next, but neither feels mutual exclusive to this cipher of Drake. One could lob accusations of appropriation and question Drake’s authenticity, but I might argue that there isn’t really an authentic Drake, at least what we’ve seen thus far. One track has his posturing with UK rapper Giggs, another sees him working atop a sample by Detroit techno mainstay Moodymann, and still another has Drake crooning to the melody of Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love” he touches on sounds from London, Atlanta, Detroit, Kingston and more. More Life leans into this tendency by really pushing forward his diverse musical interests. He eases into tracks like one does with different roles, switching up personas, sometimes convincingly and sometimes awkwardly.

If anything, this hopscotch across genres highlights Drake’s previous profession as an actor. Rather Drake has slipped from sing-songy odes and minimalist bangers to Caribbean-tinged pop even touches of UK Grime have peppered his oeuvre. Not in the way Future has his, Young Thug or Migos have theirs, and Kendrick Lamar has his. Over the course of several albums and one-off tracks, Drake has yet to develop a definitive sound. Coming off of Views, an album that was tepidly received but still managed to yield inescapable singles, More Life is less a cohesive collection with an overarching theme or concept and more like a travelogue. Without a doubt, this month’s big release was Drake’s album er playlist, More Life. The question is: Do we all try harder to live more like our ideals, or do we make do with the systems in place? The best hip-hop albums and mixtapes of the month A fair amount of compartmentalization must happen. I wonder sometimes what goes through artists’ minds when they perform to crowds like at SFMOMA, where they can dance to a song like “ Don’t Touch My Hair” but still not actually internalize the meaning. Musicians might criticize capitalism but realize that those front row seats are being bought by people who have clearly benefited from it. Black musicians can express disappointment and dislike for white and non-Black POCs that sing along and don’t refrain from saying the n-word, but people people might do it anyway. It’s something that the artist doesn’t have a lot of control over. I thought about how it would feel weird and wrong to listen to Solange perform songs that are so much about Blackness and about ownership with an audience that, though well-meaning, aren’t actually hearing what she’s saying.Īudience is a funny thing. Similarly, I thought about the long list of donors and trustees that are listed in the building at SFMOMA. I didn’t watch the actual Grammy ceremony, but it was worth noting how the performances that garnered the most press were by Black artists, while the awards themselves (at least the televised ones) went to predominantly white artists, perhaps revealing more about the Grammy membership than they would like. But I also thought about who the audience would be at such an event.

I, of course, balked at the price not surprising considering that concert ticket prices over $40 cause me to seriously pause. Ostensibly a birthday party celebrating their expansion that opened a year ago, the music portion of the party-the part where Solange is performing, as well as jook dancer Lil Buck-is $200-$350, though I’m honestly unsure what the price range entails. In April, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will be hosting a big fancy art bash culminating with a set by Solange. But every once in awhile, the music part overlaps with the art part. I managed to miss the whole beef, not because I dislike Remy Ma or Nicki Minaj, but because I got consumed by other things.

I tend to pay more attention to the comings and goings within the museum world than I am listening to Remy Ma’s diss track (this is the actual truth. I live in the Bay Area and I’m involved in the art world.

Drake more life album art