Scrolling SoundCloud the other week, I was reminded of the Blackberry arguments, email apologies, and voicemail serenades of the Heartbreak Drake era. Technically, that’s the name of the unofficial compilation mixtape series I had downloaded onto my old iPod, but I consider Heartbreak Drake the brief moment in time right before and after So Far Gone, where a bunch of Drake’s grainy R&B loosies, unfinished scraps, and remixes were floating around rap blogs. The moody emotional dumps were ridiculously petty yet sincere situational melodramas that felt so raw and impulsive, like they were recorded seconds after some shit went down.
Listening to them today, it’s hard to get over the fact that they’re full of ideas that—through a combination of age, insecurities, and public embarrassments—would eventually harden into incel balladry. At the time, though, they felt like the purest form of an overly sensitive guy in his early 20s stumbling through dating life while also trying hard as hell to get famous enough so that every woman and her man would respect him.
The Evolution of a Conversational Style
What I love most about this era is his Sirkian, conversational writing style that aspired to capture Static Major’s attention to detail, Aaliyah and Brandy’s personal nuance, and Trey Songz and J. Holiday’s playboy bravado all at once. On “Something,” he falls over a woman he just met uncomfortably hard, as Noah “40” Shebib’s drums throb like a heart ready to burst. After a breakup on “Stunt On You,” he goes on an obsessive downward spiral, driving up and down the street of his ex late at night, hoping that he can flex his new car on her. In a creaky melody on “Messages From You,” he damn-near wants to perform the mind-erasing procedure from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on himself, so he can move on from the old girl blowing up his phone to the new girl that might be the one: “I was caught up in these drinks they keep on making/An amazing conversation/With this girl named Lorraine, who says she’s from L.A./And keeps makin’ me laugh and even asks if she can pay.” The indecision makes him go full Z-Ro by the end—you know he was always a Houston boy deep down.
Why “Fucking Fans” Stands Out
For me, that will always be the realest Drake, an honest-to-a-fault, bitchy numbskull that could make songs full of small, personal moments feel universal. I found last year’s $ome $exy $ongs 4 U off-putting, because it gestures toward the clumsy intimacy of Heartbreak Drake but with the spirit of the cold, lonely mansion music that has defined his 2020s. One of the exceptions from this decade is “Fucking Fans,” off the better-than-you-remember Certified Lover Boy. It’s everything I want from modern Drake: a cloudy character study with a little heart, from the perspective of his degenerate 30s.
It’s really got it all. The spare OVO braintrust—40, Party, Noel—beat that makes you want to sulk in first class, with a glacial tempo that gives off a hint of Smoke E. Digglera’s guilt trip anthem “On tha Downside.” Technologically-enhanced relationship drama, like when he switches to a six-digit lock screen so more of his secrets don’t get out. Unintentionally funny confessions: He tries to say sorry for having a kid behind her back, he misses spooning with her. Some people think when we ask Drake to grow up, it’s in hope of songs about taking Adonis to the batting cages or getting in his 4:44 biracial billionaire bag, but no, it’s about feeling like we still have an idea of what his life is like. I want him to nip his own flaws instead of lashing out at anyone who dares to point them out. “I’m still working on me,” he roars in the opening line, like he’s been waiting to get that sentiment off his chest. A combination of manchild excuses and Murtaugh-style I’m too old for this shit self-criticism that might be the most truthful thing he’s written all decade.