ICEMAN by Drake | Album Review

the first of three albums after the 2024 beef

Maybe 3Stacks was right. After a certain point, whether that be age or financial status, you really don’t have anything to talk about in your raps. Drake has fallen has been stuck in this rut for damn near the past decade. How many ways can you find to talk about being the Toronto Batman and having everything, everyone at your disposable, while gossiping off PI hints like a Mean Girl? He hasn’t had a bonafide hit since at least Views, though I liked Her Loss and Honestly, Nevermind even more, but his insistence of his own relevance — backed exclusively by white guys on their dads’ yachts, streamers, “rap media pages,” fans of the lofty “Old Drake,” and those who only live the rap genre vicariously — has really soured his image by the very cultures he’s aimed to emulate in attempts to prop up his street cred.

This of course came to a head a couple years ago, but I won’t talk much about that here. But does that finally give him something to talk about? This is supposed to be about the music, apparently, a message forgotten somewhere along the way as folks study subtweets, sneak disses, and streaming numbers instead of trusting what qualified ears have to say. I’ve come out of my hovel to say that I’m struggling to care what anyone has to say about anything because if it isn’t ran by the internet or AI or editors or The Consensus first, it doesn’t seem to really matter and I can’t really subscribe to that. I write anyway.

But Drake seems disinterested in writing anyway, rather, it seems he does so out of obligation. As a victory (?) lap over presumed, imagined, and I guess, even real haters — the very idea of someone not liking him and his subsequent reactions draw comparisons to certain American political figures — we get yet another album with a semi-inventive rollout after months and months of moody IG captions and fans on both sides of the aisle accruing vitriolic social media reply threads over men they’ve never met at their own expense. This wouldn’t be so bad if these flames weren’t consistently stoked by Drake’s actions, be it the lawsuits, his chronically online personality, etc. The best course of action, as noted by his adversary, was inaction, or, bravely so, just release good damn music.

Anyway, with some amount of hype, and probably more false promises, ICEMAN is finally here. Let’s see if I can be less sardonic about its content than I am about everything it took to get here. Apparently, in the last hour leading up to midnight, Drake announced the surprise release of three separate albums, in what feels like a ploy to regather his relevance in numbers and abundance rather than substance. This review will focus specifically on ICEMAN; Maid of Honour and Habibti will follow at some point over the weekend, maybe.

“Make Them Cry” is an oft repeated flow, a la every single album opener he has, but the vulnerability was surprising, particularly in its latter third. So Drake did finally find something to be introspective about. Mentioning his age, his battle with the label, which appears to be close to over with the release of these three albums, his father having cancer, and feelings of betrayal, we get a rare glimpse at the human behind the glitzy, iced out, diamond-hard facade that’s become the calling card for the Toronto artist. Paranoia appears alongside some semblance of melancholy and a deeper overanalysis of the women that he surrounds himself with, including his mother, is actually interesting for once.

Unfortunately, this is the best ICEMAN has to offer in its entirety. It’s more of the same in the worst of what we saw in For All The Dogs. Attempts at appearing interesting with eclectic references and flow changes in between recycled and monotonous, repetitive flows create for an incredibly boring experience that only momentarily flashes cohesive vignettes.

Future’s switchback, for example, to Drake’s allegiance is welcomed and provides one of the few sparks in the first half of the album on “Ran To Atlanta,” despite the irony completely flying out of the window. The beat’s a lil grimy, Future is still Future and clearly his sins can be forgiven despite being the launchpad for that ass-whooping a couple years ago. I mean when you hear his flow, it’s hard not to forgive him. And Molly Santana wasn’t bad either. The track does hold slivers of that reverence of Atlanta rap had in the mid-2010s. But Drake’s last verse just sucks.

“Make Them Pay” offers the only other respectable effort since the opener, and even then it’s still head-scratching. Flipping “Free” by Deniece Williams (Genius), Drake lobs DJ Khaled Palestine shots, further mumblings of betrayal, and dropping the idea of the Big 3, Drake revels in the toll that he’s taken over the past two years. But I don’t think there’s a single person on Earth that feels bad for him, I fear. Continuing with #bigbootyebonies and threats of real numbers on botted streams, as if it’s some kind of gotcha, epitomizes the fact that Drake just doesn’t get it.

ICEMAN houses an absurd amount of empty, veiled threats with no shame as he double and triples down at some master plan that hasn’t and probably won’t make itself evident. What Shai Gilgeous-Alexander say? He’s got all the answers to the test, but not a single soul has asked him the questions he so desires. Like a pesky ass know it all, like the nerdy ass kid from Polar Express, he just floats around our ears with answers to questions we never asked, leaving us to wonder why the fuck we should even care — we have no idea who or what you’re talking about and you refuse to stand on business, that’s already been shown.

The inclusion of “What Did I Miss?” points to at least portions of ICEMAN housing older material. But this is welcome on “Little Birdie” which sounds ancient in its mix, like it was pulled off a second edition MacBook. It feels like the most mid Soulja Boi cut you could imagine with modern production. I would rip this song from Limewire. I honestly don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.

The music is over and I’ve run out of things to say, and apparently, so has Drake.

Overall, Drake is throwing slightly runny shit at a wall and hoping it sticks. It feels like streaming fodder while everyone on Twitter freaks out and figures out what to react to. Mediocre, recycled flows and lukewarm beats make up 90% of the album, and it plays like Drake asked AI “what makes me the biggest artist in the world” and “Reasons I am better than Kendrick Lamar.” Even with all the expectations and my hesitation, ICEMAN is still a disappointment. Drake seems to have truly checked out.

I don’t even know what to say, man. This shit blows.

Rating: 3.0/10
Favorite Tracks: Make Them Cry