Drakes Scorpion Review
Drake is back at it again with yet another highly anticipated new album that’s way too long for its own good. Last Friday fresh off getting murdered execution style by Pusha T (Duppy Freestyle was cute ,but Pusha murdered Drake with The Story of Adidon) Drake dropped his fifth studio album titled Scorpion. Two days before the official release of the album he announced that it would be a double album. When I heard this, it took my hype level down a few notches. I feel like with a double album Drake is trying to please everyone and that’s not possible. Nowadays it isn’t easy to keep everyone interested when it comes to double albums, shit Biggies Life After Death is a certified classic double album and I haven’t listened to it front to back more than five times.
Side A Review
Let’s get back to Scorpion. Side A is the straight up rap side of the album. It starts off confident yet lacking energy with the song Survival. This will be a theme throughout Side A. On Survival Drake talks a lot about the beef he’s had with both Meek Mill and Diddy. There are a few memorable lines from the albums opener, like my personal favorite, “My Mount Rushmore is me with four different expressions.” This line eludes to the different sides he has when it comes to the mood of his music throughout his catalog. After the opener the next couple tracks drag on and leave me wanting more. He uses the same monotone flow without any changes or energy. There is an exception to this on track three, Elevate, he does his signature rap to sing thing and it works out in his favor, it brings the much-needed energy that’s been missing. It almost reminds me of his Thank Me Later days. The huge hit single Gods Plan also brings some more energy to the mostly slow burning first side of the album. For me, the rest of Side A doesn’t do much for me, there’s the occasional bar or two that caught my eye. There’s also a lot of talk about his son that the whole world just found out about. On the song Emotionless, Drake gives the worst excuse and the biggest cop-out for keeping his kid a secret. “I wasn’t hiding my kid from the world, I was hiding the world from my kid.” Sounds like bullshit to me. The only other notable part from Side A is the Jay Z feature, he absolutely kills his verse in the song Talk up. Other than a few shining moments, Side A of Scorpion is a 6/10 at best.
Side B Review
Now let’s talk about the emotional “heartfelt” Side B of Scorpion, the R&B side. If you’ve listened to any of Drakes slow burning R&B songs, then you’ve heard Side B of Scorpion. Slow tempo in your feelings music. Although Summer Games is more of synth pop song it still has the same feel of the rest of the songs on Side B. The features are the saving grace, the song Don’t Matter to Me features some posthumous vocals from Michael Jackson. Jackson’s vocals come from a session in 1983 that he had with Canadian singer song-songwriter Paul Anka. MJ’s vocals on this song are haunting sounds like what The Weeknd wants to sound like. Easily my favorite song on this side of the record. Other features include Static Major and Ty Dolla $ign. They come together for the song After Dark, at this point Ty Dolla $ign can do no wrong when it comes to features. He sounds amazing like always and brings some energy and personality to an otherwise monotonous song. There really isn’t much more to say about Side B, if you’re looking to be bored out of your mind for over half of these songs then this is for you.
Side B: yawn/10
Overall, Scorpion isn’t a bad album it’s just deathly boring and feels like a chore to get through.
Scorpion: 5/10
-Joe Black