Spotify Will Restrict Some New Releases to Paid Users Only

Whether or not Drake stole the sound from XXXTentacion’s “Look At Me” is another story, but “KMT” is one of “More Life’s” standout tracks.

By the time the 16th track “Lose You” rolls around, Drake finally begins to share some insightful written content and sheds some light on his current perspective on life. On Saturday he kept his promise and delivered his playlist More Life.

Rapper Drake is on course to shatter more chart records in America this week with his new project More Life. Then there’s the ghostly dancehall of “Blem”, the shittyfluted recorder hook on the Quavo- and Travi$ Scott-assisted “Portland“, and the attractive Huerco S. -informed synths of monster highlight “Lose You”, which also contains this insight: “Winning is problematic/ People like it more when you working toward something/ Not when you have it”. On “Passionfruit“, Drake gives a present-day “Marvins Room” with the twist of a newfound beat. Like always, people far and wide ate up what Drake was serving. This release strategy allowed Drake to be more experimental with the work. Recently to the R&B spotlight is Sampha, and on “More Life“, he delivers a powerful solo track, “4422”.

On Madiba Riddim, named for Nelson Mandela (his clan name was Madiba), Drake’s adopting Jamaican patois and his motivations are hiding in plain sight.

Hyped for months in advance as a kind of grand document, “Views” struck some as too long, too sulky, too loaded with heavy musings on the alienating effect of celebrity in the social-media age. She shows up at the close of “Can’t Have Everything”, sweetly urging Drizzy to calm down (presumably in light of his Meek Mill beef) and ending her message by paraphrasing Michelle Obama: “When others go low, we go high”.

While the curation of More Life is impressive and original, it does not tread much new ground in terms of content. These first day figures guarantee Drake another No. 1 album when the charts refresh in a few days.

More Life could perhaps be seen as the beginnings of a new template for this maturing era of digital distribution; an artist-driven format for churning out the level of content that being a relevant artist in the streaming era demands. And, yet again, “More Life” is another tape to hype up the anticipation for what’s to come.