4.8/10
Favorite Track: "Demons (Feat. Fivio Foreign & Sosa Greek)"
Least Favorite Track: "Desires (Feat. Future)"
At this point, Drizzy Drake requires no introduction. It’s safe to say that he is widely considered to be on the Mount Rushmore of the hip hop new school among the likes of J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar. The 6God has always held my personal respect on merit of his authenticity and genuineness. However, despite how I feel about his influence and character, his output has always fluctuated in quality for me. His new project Dark Lane Demo Tapes is no exception. I went into DLDT with high hopes as the compilation of leftovers immediately tackled my main issue with the majority of Drake projects: the length. The man has never put out an album shorter than an hour until now, which has consisten tly resulted in bloated finished products. However, Dark Lane Demo Tapes didn’t live up to my expectations in this regard. I find the majority of this project to be typical; following the same formula that we have come to expect from Drizzy. The main reason I have a tough time discussing Drake among his legendary contemporaries is his lack of creative progression. DLDT is nothing new. We’ve heard this before, his familiar mix of R&B, pop, and rap except this time the tone comes off a bit darker and more similar to early projects like Take Care. The closest thing to a change of pace that Drake attempts here is seen on the two closing tracks, “Demons” and “War”. Both see him attempting a style with some obvious UK drill worship. I can see how Drake purists and die hards wouldn’t be into these two cuts, but for me they are two of the strongest on the entire project, as they provide a change of pace and a direction that I think could be extremely refreshing to hear from him. Outside of these two and a few other notables like the soulful “When To Say When”, it is apparent that the formula we have seen from Drake during this half of his career has gotten stale. He shows up once a year, drops his annual project half full of half-baked tracks, fifteen of them are never played again, but two or three become the biggest hits of the year. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but at this point it’s beyond predictable. DLDT is nothing new. Sorry Drake, we’ve heard this one before.