Coming off of what folks seem to believe was a battle lost to Kendrick Lamar, Drake surprisingly teams up with PARTYNEXTDOOR to drop their album titled “$ome $exy $ongs 4 U”. Released on Feb 14, a day full of love and endearment, we were in for a treat.
Opening with “CN TOWER” an homage to the iconic structure in Drake’s hometown of Toronto, which is the same tower Drake sits on for the cover of his album “Views”. Right off the bat, “CN TOWER” showcases Drake’s lyricism as he talks about the tower’s color being red, and then cleverly flips the idea from color to the action of leaving someone on read, “What color’s the CN Tower? It’s red tonight//Just like the text I sent you from bed tonight.” Clearly and R&B start to the album, which leads me to believe that this album will be filled mostly with similar tracks.
Drake effectively plays on nostalgia with the track “SPIDER-MAN SUPERMAN” which includes a little sample from his song “The Real Her” off of his 2011 album titled, “Take Care”. Hearing PARTYNEXTDOOR on this song was a perfect touch to add to the sad, thought-provoking vibes that this song gives off.
This album wasn’t perfect though, after hearing what has to be the worst song from this album, “MEET YOUR PADRE”, featuring Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR speaking Spanish here and there. This song just simply did not do it for me, and I did not enjoy the return Spanish–-speaking Drake.
That being said, “$$$4U” features several good songs, but one stands out to me the most. “NOKIA,” the 14th track off of this album, evokes the same summer feelings as “Rich Baby Daddy” did when it first came out. Sampling the classic Nokia ringtone, Drake finally creates a high-energy beat that not only sounds good, but is also very catchy. There is definitely a lot of controversy around this song, especially on TikTok, where users are saying this song brings back “zesty Drake” due to the high use of autotune which is heard on this track. Aside from people hating on this song, this has to be the song of the album, definitely making it onto my playlist for the summer.
Another popular song as of late has been “DIE TRYING” an acoustic song, and a switch up from the rest of this album, featuring Yebba at the very end of the track. PARTYNEXTDOOR was my favorite part of this song, adding yet another summer song to “$$$4U”
The release of this album has only heightened the feud between Drake and Kendrick fans everywhere, but overall, the hate on this album is so forced, comparable to the hate on “For All The Dogs”. People will hate it now but in the future, retrospectively looking back, they’ll finally realize that the collaboration between these two Canadian rappers is a work of art.
