The Drake Trifecta

Oh, you think you’re funny huh? Aubrey? Three albums? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Look, it's shocking but also not that "The Boy" dropped three albums all in one night. He's finally free from his record contract with UMG, the label he was in a huge legal battle with over the contract disputes and those damn bots. Not for that one diss track, which he claimed He wasn't suing no rapper but "The Man"! Whatever the true reason was, the majority rules; folks still going to believe it was over "Not Like Us". I found it cute and funny when he burned down a bot farm in the last episode of the ICEMAN series, especially with UMG and others accusing Drake of doing the same thing in the past. 

I think everyone knows what happened two years ago. Can’t believe it’s been two years, feels like five years. I honestly find it annoying that people still talk about it, I can barely afford food, there are more important issues going on. Everyone is just annoying from both sides lol. I’ll admit the lawsuit was pretty funny. Drake has always been one of my favorite artists/people to write about. I can say he's up there for the term "case study" as they say. With each release, I always wonder what his mind state, what "pot meets kettle" moments are bound to happen, what dad jokes are we gonna hear, and what story from Chubbs is he going to mention. Seems like that whole summer and the Super Bowl halftime of 2025 really broke and hurt him, whoever said it didn't bother him was fucking lying. With him dropping three albums all at once, it makes me realize I have a lot to type about on these records. I really don't. Well mainly one album I will, the others not so much. 40 plus songs, 2.5 hours, of new Drake songs.....good lord. Let's break this down, everyone!

HABIBTI: I'm going to be straightforward here, this shit STINKS. I liked two songs here, and that's me being super generous and kind. "I'm spent" with Loe Shimmy, who by the way shout out to trashydrakefan who put me on to Shimmy about a year or so ago. I know Trashy is going to hate my review but it's okay its all love. I've been waiting for Loe and Drake to put a song out together for a good awhile and I'm glad it finally came to fruition. I wish Loe's part was a bit longer, I felt he had the strongest performance and presence, Drake was fine here, just singing getting top, which is cool! Who doesn't love getting head? 

Just a lot of the lyrics, the production, and even the singing are just so boring and mundane. Talking about a girl with her matcha addiction and why she consumes so much in a day made my eyes roll so hard I thought my eyeballs had fallen out. The circle K line about walking alone at night cause he has no more sodas made me laugh so fucking hard I think I had a headache from just laughing. To be fair, I did relate to this cause I did live near a liquor store but I was 16 years old not in my 40's. He does have a lot of out-of-context bars to be fair but I think they were more funny. The lines I’m either legit laughing cause I’m going “what the fuck is this bullshit?”. He even mentioned that evil fucking app "HINGE" on "Slap The City", made my skin crawl and gave me a nasty chill down my spine. I legit hate the app with so much passion I don't know why I still use it. Dating apps are like anime gacha games, just pure evil. It was nice to hear those weird drum sounds from "Show Me a Good Time" on that song however, it felt nostalgic. "Classic" I enjoyed too, just cause of the sample of "Don't Beat Around The Bush" by Jus Cause. 

The intro had a nice idea but failed with the final product falling flat. His singing over a stripped-down ballad was a nice change of pace, something I felt he always wanted to do ever since he heard a Rod Wave. I wonder if Drake goes to Arby's like Rod. God, that meme is so fucking stupid, if you know you know. It switches up in the second half, the acoustic kicks into high gear and DJ Frisco gives the track more life and boost to the track. I'm just annoyed cause when the best parts kick in, you're like "YEA THERE WE GO!", the song just ends. It pisses me off, I got blue balled. The Sexxy Red collab is very boring, she doesn’t need to be on a slow ballad song at all. 

Overall, the album is just a snooze. In my opinion, His worst album to date. I felt this was super rushed or most of these songs were left in the vault for a valid reason and he only wanted to release them cause he needed one more album to fulfill the UMG deal he was currently on with album releases. It also made me reflect on how Drake and his camp of artists that are on his label in a sense, ruined the current state of R&B. It's just fast food music of the genre and not even the good fast food. To be fair, this album wasn't super bloated or garbage like Chris Brown's new album, at least this attempt had decent ideas, it just falls flat. I personally skip this album if you've listened to this yet, just peep the collab song with Shimmy and maybe "Classic", god I hate that name for a song. 

Favorite Songs: I'm Spent, Classic

Least Favorite Songs: Rest of the album 

2/10

Maid of Honour: seeing the reactions to this album takes me back to the time when "Honestly Nevermind" dropped. The die-hard fans of his hated that record when it dropped, most of them still do, while others have the album grow on them in time. I do agree that at times the Drake records do sound better after like the tenth listen (word to film Twitter Adam). Once again I'm in the Minority here, I love this album. I legit can't pinpoint the reason why. Maybe I have a fondness for Drake’s goofier side, when it's done right. Could be that it's another huge risk for him to do shit that's completely out of the norm of what people expect him to do, or maybe this style of music and sound has grown on me as I get older. Now I legit don't go out as much, I don't ever go to nightclubs or bars or raves, I'm gonna assume this is what the album is meant for those types of people. I love it though as someone who mainly stays at home and plays video games. 

This whole album is basically a more fleshed out, risk-taking, "Gayer", and more focused "Honestly Nevermind" sequel. I know saying "gayer" or"gay it up" is legit a not a good thing to say but like come on, it works at times! I do wonder if the rumors were true about him getting a radio station in GTA 6, cause most of this album fits the tone for it. You know being in a set in Vice City and such. Listen to a song like "Road Trips", I can picture cruising down Ocean Drive with this song blasting while I'm hitting other cars or pedestrians in that game. It just fits perfectly. The Piano/Synths scratches my brain and makes me feel fuzzy with dopamine rushing through my veins. I love it. 

The intro “Hoe Phase" samples “Fergalicious” which hilarious sample choice. I think of that shitty movie “Epic Movie” when I hear that song. It’s an odd intro when you first listen to kick off the album if you haven’t heard it yet, especially when you see the album cover with his mom on it, while he’s rapping about shaking ass, pussy, and being a hoe. “Outside Tweaking" with Stunna Sandy was nice too. I'm not too familiar with Stunna, people say she's like an Ice Spice clone. She was really good here, I love the little duet she had with Drake on the hook. Whole songs are mainly tweaking out on LSD, which is sick to be honest. The line about trying to DM an OnlyFans girl but didn't wanna see him acting like a fan was pretty funny, more funny that he realized the girl he was trying to DM, the manager was her boyfriend, which happens in many such cases! 

"Cheetah Print" with Sexyy Red was good! I know people can't stand her but she's fine! Only on features, just not a whole album however. I love the 80's dance vibes, reminds me of shit my father would play whenever he let me visit him. The "Cha Cha Slide" "remix" at the end was stupid as fuck but I smiled cause how absurd it was. "Need a bad bitch to take my innocence" YOU ARE OVER 40! (Hilarious). “Amazing Shape” with legend Popcaan was solid. Mainly cause Popcaan washed Aubrey here, makes me wonder how come they never did a collab album/EP together, I think I wonder why. Drake’s fake accent didn’t annoy me on this one like in the past. Nice to see after many years of proclaiming his love for BBW’s, he made a whole anthem for them. Production makes you want to do the robot dance like Mr. Krabs, The robot voice on the interlude did its thing. The line about her ass being so fat she can’t fit in the coffin, she’s need to be cremated is pretty finny, even the way he said ass too. The whole track is absurd, I can’t help but smile.  The DJ intro helps the track too. 

“True Bestie”, Meh. The beat is nice but lyrically, mundane. His flow is nice, I’ll give it that. “New Bestie” was a fine song until the beat switch kicks in, the song gets a lot better. I think I would’ve loved this song more if the song had the same vibes as the 2nd half. I too want a Latina tho. “Q&A” is my favorite on this. The way the production is layered makes my ears tingle, in a good way. If you had told me this was a leftover from “Honestly Nevermind” I believe you. The “Why are you kicking your feet up with (blank), Are you Michael Jordan?” line made me chuckle a bit. Some of the lines are pretty corny but I don’t know, they’re pretty humorous, especially the one about him asking if the woman is a goalie for saving all her screens or randomly breaking character when he shouted out KD.

“Stuck” I remember hearing on one of the old Iceman episodes, I would say this most accessible song to listen to here. The sample is clean, love the little drums pattern, the hook is catchy, and Drake's singing was the best here, vocals and performance-wise. "Goose and The Juice" I wanted to love more but I wished he used his natural singing voice instead of burying in autotune. It honestly sounds like he was doing his best Weeknd impression here. I love the disco vibes though and the line about him talking shit about the lady he’s trying to get with having a shitty wedding venue is some funny dirty macking shit right there. Like, come on girl! do better! "Princess" I didn't like at all. Should've picked a better song to end this on, could've done a "Jimmy Cooks" part 2 in tribute. 

Look, I love this album. I know. To me, I wish he did more albums and songs like this instead of them mid tempo raps or some shitty low-tempo snooze R&B. It's different! I have said that when a rapper gets older they should just stop rapping and make ballads, sing over production like this, or go the Jack Harlow route (Done right though). Fuck it man, take risks! Just don't go country or pop rock, yuck no thanks! I am a "Honestly Nevermind" truther, I am going to be a "Maid of Honour" truther too! Overall, I thought it was good. *puts hands up* (I did find that one review funny when they said listening to this is better when you pretend Drake isn't here cause this does work with a few songs lol)

Favorite songs: Road Trips, Outside Tweaking, Cheetah Print, Amazing Shape, BBW, Q&A, Stuck, Hoe Phase 

Least Favorite songs: Princess, Which One

8/10

Iceman: Here we are at the final stage of this review, the long-awaited album….ICEMAN. He’s also no longer a nice man. God, I believe he actually said the shit and tried to make it sound tough. Never embrace memes, folks. A lot of the die-hard Drake fans that are basically the new MAGA fans have been saying for the past few years, “Oh Hip-Hop is dead or boring right now without a new Drake album”, “Kendrick killed the genre and he’s the reason why there hasn’t been a number one from a rap song in ages” OH BROTHER SHUT UP! The dumbest shit ever to be said, He did drop a collaboration album with PND that had “NOKIA” and the best song on the album. Second of all, He did have “What Did I Miss?’, which at the time I didn’t really care for and others felt the same cause didn’t chart well and essentially was not on the charts after a couple of weeks. If anything, I feel Drake in a sense but mostly his delusional fan base ruined the genre, everyone is just talking about numbers and not the quality of the songs or albums from the artist. God, it’s the dumbest shit and most basic subhuman bullshit ever. 

Anyways the music itself, the album is…fine. It’s nothing groundbreaking or out of the norm. Most of the songs on this record range from good to cringe, mostly in the moments with jabs and shots over those “Insert random time in random city” type beats. Random but at times, annoying beat switches, and usually the second beat isn’t as strong when you compare it to the other beat. This is basically the “revenge” album, or the “I feel isolated” album too as well. Drake kills his old self from feeling betrayed and shunned by his fellow rappers to his fans and the industry. On the intro he even mentions his longtime producer "40' having issues with him not lending his ear and letting Drake hear about his issues and depression over the whole saga of the beef. He shouts out and compares himself to BTS, feeling "discovered" and folks knowing all his hardship of trying to find his place and acceptance. The intro is nice as we look into his mindset of basically saying "yeah the beef fucked me up", which is hilarious in hindsight with many of his streamer or rapper friends saying he wasn't bothered. This is basically the last time I think we hear the old Drake for good, cause for the rest of the album. Oh boy. 

"Dust" starts off slow but picks up when the beats kicks in. I like the energy Drake gives out here, the whole theme is basically dissing Kendrick about when's the last time you had a plaque and blow the "dust" off the old ones cause mine don't and I keep making hit after hit. Which I mean, You do but most of its slop and you drop an album almost every six months to help with that gambling addciton. I thought the Samuel Bankman shout out was pretty funny. It's a cute little diss I'll admit, I just wish the verses would've stood out more than the hook but song is still okay for what it is. "Whisper My Name" my favorite song on this. It reminds of that hunger, drive, and passion he had from ten years ago. He takes shots at Carti, which is another artist who has a MAGA like fanbase too like "The Boy", saying I know what you said about me to his old friend/rival The Weeknd aka Tae Takemi biggest fumbler. I know this shot was for Carti not clearing his verse for throwaway song from that “100 gigs" side project he was doing on his burner account, and rather do songs with his biggest opp. The hook is pretty good here, I like the little loop being played in the beat. Whole song is him just talking shit about folks gossiping and what's going to happen when pulls up to the big festivals like Coachella or Rolling Loud, you going to say something then or pretend to be buddy buddy? The "these boys dress up and think that they somebody, shit is like comic-con" was a good bar that got a good laugh outta of me. And Yes, he's going to take the 500k over the dinner with Jay-Z, which who wouldn’t. 

Speaking of Jay, on "Janice STFU" Drake taks shots about it seems like Jay is always somehow involed in a lot his beefs, which is kind of true cause seems like a lot of rappers run to Hov when shit hits the fan. He knows the "Jig is up". He also takes aim at the rappers that took shots at him who he helped with the simtulis package, saying you're never going to get bigger wihtout my help so get use to the fame. Second half is more shots at Kendrick, talking about white kids only listen to you cause they feel guilt. HOLY REACH. Rolled my eyes at that one. He aims to explain how he left his deal with TDE, suggesting he took a huge financial hit to be "independent." Whole time listening to this song, I'm wondering who the fuck is Janice? "Ran To Atlanta" which, arlight pretty funny name for a song. God this shit is so bad. Like yeah, good to see that Future and Drake are on good terms but it doesn't sound or feel like it. The worst song these two have ever done together, sounds the song was made with Future being held at gunpoint or when you clock in on a shift with your least favorite coworkers and just phoning it in. Molly Santana was the only one who stood out to me on this shithole, even though it's not her best material. "Shabang" I'm indiffernt about. The beat is cool and Quavo's ad libs help the track give it a boost but nothing on here being said stood out to me. The "mid mid mid skip skip" is "pot meet kettle" moment for me cause that's most of Drake's output in the last decade. 

Shout out to ovrkast for his production contributions on "Make Them Pay". He's been one of my favorite up and coming rappers/producers. I just hope in the near future he keeps his material for himself. I do like the song depsite a couple of bars. I don't think Lil Caesars makes their dough, and the Adin ross line legit made my skin crawl. I fucking can't stand that dork. The Hov shot I mentioned eariler gets brought up again here. The J Cole part I'll admit is valid from Drake's point of view, saying I still got love for you from our history and story together but I don't think we can be best friends evert again and I can't forgive you and that's a part of life. J Cole was a huge dork and loser during the whole saga, and even after too during his rollout of his album earlier in the year. I did like he also said the whole idea of them doing a song together wasn't going to work we too many chefs aka egos in that kitchen. I know he's easy target to make fun of but that Khaled line about how his own people are waiting for a "Free Palestine" and how the situation isn't "black or white" adding the colors of the flag of Palestine to it was a nice touch. Is Drake an ally? I'm not even sure but folks to use it as a "GOTCHA" moment is pretty dumb in my opinion, I looked it at as a "Let's bully this village idiot here for a quick second". I wished he had the music video version of "Burning Bridges" instead of this version, the video had Aubrey and his crew singing and laughing on the hook, makes the whole track hit harder. Especially the whole song being about Rocky and Rihanna, Mostly ASAP. The fake mob bars are catchy and clever, even though he's dry snitching on Chubbs again. If you ignored or skip the corny "I am Iceman, Not a Niceman" part on "National Treasures" the song is pretty good, I love the beat switch, The Kobe and Shaq line was good, and Drake's flow is also good here too.

The song with 21 Savage song isn't one of their best songs together. Could be their worst song as a duo? I don’t know, I feel like 21 peaked around covid and his music took a huge nose dive. “What Did I Miss” I didn’t care for back then, I still don’t. “Plot Twist” is just background noise. “2 Hard 4 The Radio” is his attempt on making his West Coast song, mainly if he from the Bay Area. The beat is cool, P-Lo is a name I haven’t heard since in my early 20’s. The songs stinks, the mustard diss is cute. I get what he was trying to do but it seems like he was being a troll and funny but it falls flat. “Make Them Remember” got leaked under the name “1AM in Albany”, That “Not See”(Nazi) line is fucking up there for one of his worst bars he ever said in his lifetime. Wanted to bang myself with a hammer after hearing that. The Dr.Dre diss did make my jaw drop, that was good. Nice one. The cheesy short joke at the end was good too, way better than him quoting Kendrick’s own bars, like “WHAT IS THE BRAIDS?!” Line or The bible line. Feels super dated, would’ve worked better two years at the height of the beef. It sounds like when you got into an argument with someone and had to bring up some old shit that happened months ago to think you’re proving a point but if anything, you’re the one looking the fool who's reading foolin’ fools. I still like the song depsite a few gripes, I think he sounded good here, plus the video with the onlyfans chick and him hanging in the mayor office was pretty funny. Wished Rob Ford was alive to see that. 

“Little Birdie” is a “Mid Mid Mid, Skip Skip”, same with “Don’t Worry” too. “Firm Friends” has him working with Conductor (WE HAVE A PROBLEM!) Wiliams, that’s honestly nice. A lot of “woe is me” raps here, Luis Enrique's shout was dope to hear. Please beat Aresnal. The song is good, maybe the best one as we are wrapping up towards the end.  Telling Rocky to kill himself was super out of pocket. And the final track “Make Them Know” is a good outro and end to the album. Drake is very low-key here, just reflecting on everything from the start of the record and at this point in his life. His burning down a bot farm is comedy in the music video, like buddy, you’ve been accused of the same thing! The ending part about him adressing where is the “Old Drake”? Well he’s dead. The guy who made all thos songs in the early 2010’s is never coming back. And honestly, does suck, more rap-wise. Like I said with one of my other album reviews, I rather he just makes stupid and goofy clun songs than him being angry or “woe is me, please everyone. I’m hurting!” Raps. The Iceman little theme song does appear at the end and only gripe it should’ve kicked off the album cause whoever made that, that shit is so good. A lot of good tik tok edits with that.

Overall, Final thoughts, I have gripes with this album. At times. I just wished some songs would’ve got cut or maybe stuck more than just a good flow, or a nice produtcion, or random jab at his opps. I can see why people have this as their favorite out of the three albums but I think it’s super bloated and just too much huffing and puffing, long and drawn out one verse raps, and background noise music where nothing perked my ears up and want to pay attention to. Would’ve enjoyed this more if most of the songs after track nine were cut out. Hearing people this is his own version “Backpack” rap is dumbest shit I’ve heard. Just because he’s rapping on beats with no drums isn’t mind blowning, or saying the beat switches are good is also asinine. I don’t hate this album, servered it’s purpose, better than most of his recent records but the two-year-long wait for this wasn’t really worth it at the end. 

Favorite Songs: Whisper My Name, Make Them Pay, Burning Bridges, National Treasures, Make Them Remeber, Dust, Janice STFU, Firm Freinds, Make Them Know

Least Favorite Songs: Little Birdie, Don’t Worry 

6/10 

And that’s that. God I need some rest. I heard he might drop another album sometime in the fall with Conductor Williams. I hope it’s a scary hours 4 type joint, we don’t need another 20 songs, I’m Draked out right now. As of writing this, he’s no longer with UMG, he’s independent now. I did hear UMG is offering somewhere up to FIVE BILLION DOLLARS to stay, which sounds like some bullshit. I don’t think they want to keep him around other than for the money after he did a whole album talking shit about them. They still own his old music, it’s better than whatever he has going according to folks. Just break up and move on. You still going to make money I don’t know what the future holds, just make club music at this point. Tap into 70’s or do a shitty rap country collab with Jelly Roll that I can shit on. I just hope he moves from the bitterness and anger he has from the beef, make hits again.