by Short T
First off, I have to say that this is my favorite Drake project since So Far Gone. Thank Me Later tried to copy too many songs from So Far Gone and Take Care was too emotional and featured a lot of songs on the third quarter on the album sounding too much alike. With Nothing Was The Same, listeners get Drake as his lyrical best on “Worst Behavior,” “Own It”, and of course, the opening six minute track, “Tuscan Leather” where co-pilot 40 flips a Whitney Houston sample 3 times for each verse. Listeners also get to hear Drake sharing enough moments from his personal that can make you relate instead of hate him for sharing too much on songs like, “Too Much” and “From Time.” Drizzy has had features from Kendrick Lamar, Andre 3000, Rick Ross, T.I., and Young Jeezy on his last two albums, but on here the lone rap feature comes from Jay-Z. Even Young Hov’s two verses on “Pound Cake”, one of which featuring a harsh remark to Beanie Sigel, were not enough to keep the focus away from the star of the album as the production switched and Drake moved on to “Paris Morton Music II”, detailing how his relationships with many close friends has changed over the last few years. The problem of distant relationships plagues most of the album and answers why Nicki Minaj’s name is nowhere to be found on the guest list. Lil’ Wayne’s absence might be due to the fact that the protégé of Weezy is now as big as his mentor and it would be too predictable.
For all that’s good, there are some down moments on the album. “The Connect” and “The Language” sound too similar to be following each other, but I favor “The Connect” more because of its Houston influence on the production featuring Trae The Truth and HAWK’s collabo “Swang”. “The Language” features an outro from Birdman and sound like the Canadian hasn’t lost his flow from Migos’s “Versace” yet. “305 To My City” could have easily been replaced with any of the three bonus tracks. “All Me” is catchy, “Come Thru” is cuffing season music, and “The Motion” is one of the most well-rounded songs Mr. OVO has ever created. I can’t understand why “Wu-Tang Clan Forever” feels like an interlude and an intro for “Own It.” Also, when did Drake become such a big Wu-Tang fan. “WTCF” features a sample of the group’s song, “It’s Yourz”, Wu member Cappadonna gets shouted out in the intro, and “C.R.E.A.M” gets sampled on the first half of the last song “Pound Cake”. The reason why I became a Drake fan was because he graduated from the school of Kanye. He has mastered how to be a rapper with a normal background or different if you compare it to all of the former street pharmacists turned rappers and bring up his after school job, Degrassi. This album is not overly emotional or formulaic for club tracks, love songs, and tracks, it’s an album about a young man in his twenties reflecting on how far he has come, where he is now, and, how far he can go.
