The Iceman Goeth
This is not an essay about Drake, but it kinda is. +reviews of Nappy Nina & Swarvy, Ullnevano & Philth Spector
One of the very few upsides of the collapse of music journalism as an industry is that I no longer need to write about Drake.
In a way, that’s probably what Aubrey Graham wanted all along. Not specifically from me, though over the years I've certainly penned reviews of his music that he wouldn't like. What I mean is that he's probably glad to witness the downfall of a professional music media apparatus capable of writing about his work from anything even resembling a critical perspective. (Kudos to Pitchfork, even in its diminished capacity as a GQ satellite brand, for keeping up the good fight.)
After all, it's been a rough few years for him, image-wise.
Anyway, back when corporate outlets like Complex actually mattered, the need to write about Drake used to be all-but mandatory for a working music journo or critic. Unless you were assigned to an unrelated genre-specific beat, his ubiquity in hip-hop, pop, R&B, or any other genre he happened to glom onto ensured he lived rent-free in our drafts, at minimum serving as a reference point in any worthwhile contemporary coverage of these scenes.
For instance, during my tenure as a Forbes contributor, where I regularly covered Billboard charts and RIAA gold/platinum certifications, he was a perennially reliable subject given his repeated and repeatable successes in both areas. Otherwise, as a freelancer elsewhere, my so-called "hot takes" about Drake on ye olde Twitter (pre-Musk, ofc) garnered me DMs and emails from editors interested in my byline. It literally paid to have thoughts on that guy.
I'm somewhat grateful that those days are behind me–behind us, really. I commend my comrades-in-arms over at the recently revitalized POW Mag for publishing Paul Thompson's trio of creatively plotted essays on Iceman, Maid Of Honor, and Habibti in a manner none of the old guard websites would've ever permitted. But other than, say, whatever my exceedingly talented old chum Craig Jenkins ends up writing about these records in Vulture, I doubt there will be much left worth reading on the matter. After all, who even publishes reviews any more?
A grievance I had with Drake and others firmly in the superstar tier back in the before times is how much oxygen their new release drops sucked up. If you had the misfortune of putting out an album the same week as he did, you were probably fucked. Especially if you happened to be a rapper. Then your chances of getting serious attention from the editorial teams at coveted publications when he had something new to listen to write about dropped precipitously. The myopia was real.
So, given the shabby state of music media nowadays, Drake dumping not one, not two, but three simultaneous projects late last week–two of them by surprise–ensured that anyone who dared to drop on that same date got fucked three times as hard.
LUCKI, a Chicago rapper who put out his first mixtape–2013's Alternative Trap–mere months before Nothing Was the Same, will now have to settle for a notably lower Billboard 200 chart debut than desired for his latest EMPIRE-released album Dr*gs R Bad. In far worse shape is the adventurous Kenny Mason out of Atlanta, his decidedly more left-of-center BULLDAWG sapped of discoverability and likely relegated to consumption by his core fanbase. Drake's aggressive stunt also overshadows independent albums well worth hearing like former Epic Records act Nick Grant's Smile and NYC upstart Lord Sko's ELEVATOR MUSIC with the DJ/producer fixture Statik Selektah.
By now, you've had a few days to either check out those Drake projects or to opt out of them. I chose the latter option, especially since I no longer have any financial incentive to tune in to his music in order to plot out pitches for paid writing work. That system effectively died when COVID arrived, and even the outlets that survived that period never recovered. So, if you're like me, and nobody is paying you to have an opinion about the Iceman try-hard triptych, why not click on any of the four new rap albums I linked to in the preceding paragraph instead?
Nappy Nina & Swarvy, Sow & So
Despite her proud Oakland origins, rapper Nappy Nina has been representing for Brooklyn long enough that New York deserves the privilege of claiming her. Even so, it tracks that she continues to vibe with another bicoastal hip-hop head, the Philly-to-L.A. producer Swarvy. Sow & So, their fabulous and fascinating follow-up to the joint 2024 effort Nothing Is My Favorite Thing, boasts this irresistible bouncy quality that exudes California and tempers it with coolly executed, cerebral rhyming more historically associated with five boroughs. Set those admittedly threadbare narratives aside, however, and what you get is an exceptionally cozy and lived-in listening experience. Songs like "Been Through" and the sublimely trunk-rattling "Hear Know" co-exist with the relatively more serene "Well Done" and the shapeshifting "One Fifty." Their guest list stuns as well, with indie talents like Blu, Quelle Chris, and H31R's maassai coming through to support and show love with good-to-great features. Still, when the legendary Shabazz Palaces steps into the spotlight on "Mail Clerk," a beautifully unorthodox tune where Nina explores banality and gravity with equal consideration, his complementary verse echoes literally and figuratively from a divine vantage point.
Ullnevano & Philth Spector, Stephon Barbury
Philly producer Philth Spector was already strongly positioned to have a breakout year in the hip-hop underground, thanks to his participation in Teller Bank$' buzzy new album Hate Island. Yet his return a month or so later alongside UllNevaNo–say it out loud phonetically–on Stephon Barbury should accelerate that upward momentum. The basketball-centric Baltimore rapper approaches these aesthetically warped yet implicitly rugged beats with noticeably disciplined lyricism, coming factually correct on "Ankle Injury" and staying unceasingly nice through the intimate closer "Newlyweds." Their pairing feels oddly and wondrously perfect, the emcee's somewhat traditionalist albeit relentless flow anchoring the instrumentals on "Flowers Given," "I Understand It Now," and standout cut "Yellow Jackets" in order to keep them from drifting off into the sonic aether.
Three new tracks to snack on...
Stoic, "UP & AWAY! (feat. Mick Jenkins & Kaicrewsade)"
Sha Ray & DJ Haram, "Champagne and Bouquets"
Magno Garcia, "Red Rolls White Ceiling"
