When Drake’s second album, Take Care, leaked online in November 2011, all his passion and purpose he’d conveyed into making the record was suddenly available to anyone willing to download it.
Take Care would become Drake’s defining work. The record honed his sound and solidified the emotional core of his music. The dark, moody record, that wavered between hurt and hubris, bewitched with its own inertia. It demands immersion and intention. In the ten years since the album’s release, its grip on the music industry has only gotten stronger.
At the time, critic after critic wrote how Drake seesawed between pop and rap. However, it’s clearer now how he activated a path that would wipe out genre entirely. Without Drake, we wouldn’t have the wave of melodic SoundCloud rappers or the beat switch-happy blare of pop artists trying on rap and vice versa today.