For All The Dogs, Drake’s eighth studio album, came out with a hint of heavy-heartedness; for many fans, he is beginning to struggle to keep his music new and interesting. Despite attempts to reassure his fans that “if you’ve ever loved anything I’ve done the past, this album will be for you”, his attempt to return to old Drake was met with mixed responses. Die-hard fans are singing this album’s praises, while other more casual listeners are expressing their disappointment, causing a borderline social media war. Drake emerged from the pandemic with three albums exploring afrobeat, club music, and trap, but this album feels more lacking in creativity. With the same length as a feature film, For All The dogs seems like a disjointed and bloated attempt to air his own grievances and continue to boast his own (slightly sexist) ideas.
There is evidence of an arguably unsuccessful attempt to create a concept album, with the idea of these tracks being played on the fictional BARK radio, hosted by Snoop Dogg, Sade Adu, and (somewhat strangely) George Clinton. It also describes a Fyre Festival-esque island vacation, including the track ‘Callin’ For You’, which is almost entirely sampled from Rye Rye’s ‘Shake It to the Ground’.
In typical Drake fashion, the album is filled with corny lyrics and moody emotional outbursts; he maintains his immaturity and unsavoury views on women in most of the tracks. On the song ‘Daylight’ he claims to try and “fuck all the bitches that look like my ex” and then invites his five-year-old son to rap on the same track. He also demonstrates how hung-up he is over Rhianna by attempting to sing about how unhurt he is on ‘Fear of Heights’; he protests a little too much that although “they make it sound like I’m still hung up on you”, it “could never be”. Sometimes less is more.
However, these low points on the album are countered by impressive features from other big artists, including SZA, 21 Savage and J Cole. Although, they tend to overpower him – even Teezo Touchdown expresses more emotion on ‘7969’ and it doesn’t go in Drake’s favour. Young rapper Yeet steals the show on ‘IDGAF’ and, despite Drake’s best efforts to demonstrate his GCSE-level Spanish on ‘Gently’, Bad Bunny’s melodic bars take over the better part of the track. The bass-banger ‘Rich Baby Daddy’ is easily my personal album highlight. Featuring SZA and Sexyy Redd, the chorus is a total earworm, and it includes an ever-so-slightly cringe Florence + The Machine sample: “Take care of the dog/until the dog days are over” causes me to roll my eyes every time.
Drake has established himself as one of the world’s most popular and culture-defining rappers and is credited with changing the game. But this doesn’t take away from the fact he is beginning to let himself down: For All The Dogs is a lament to his recent lifestyle which sounds to be no fun, and he drags us all along to be the company of his misery.
5/10