In the ever-evolving realm of hip-hop, with fierce debates over who’s at the top, Drake has been synonymous with being both an industry kingpin and a source of controversy. His chart-topping hits combined with a decade-long reign in the music business have made him a household name and a true icon of modern rap. Yet, a question has popped up in the minds of music enthusiasts and critics alike: has Drake become mid?
His recent release, “For All The Dogs” was hyped up for months as his last album, “Her Loss” had been released almost a year prior, in November of 2022. With his new album, Drake brought out an arsenal of features from the likes of J. Cole on “First Person Shooter”, Yeat on “IDGAF”, and Sexyy Red and SZA on “Rich Baby Daddy”. Although these songs do deserve praise, the hype obscures how Drake got absolutely carried, getting outperformed on any song with a feature. He even recently got outperformed by a computer on a song called “Heart on My Sleeve” in which an AI version of his voice was used to rap the lyrics of the song.
A recent study of a random sample of Whitney Young students found that 42% of those polled concur that Drake is mid, while another 42% object to the categorization. The remaining 16% say they don’t listen to Drake at all. While this is not conclusive evidence to determine whether Whitney Young students think Drake is mid, we can look to other rappers such as Soulja Boy instead to tell us. In an interview on the Breakfast Club, when asked about Drake, Soulja Boy said “stop playing with me like I aint teach Drake everything he knows,” implying that he does not like Drake as he believes Drake copied his style of music and his flow. Furthermore, other celebrities such as Nicki Minaj and Pusha T have both shared their disapproval for Drake, both from a musical and personal standpoint. This proves that Drake has progressively gotten lazier over time, as he simply copies other rappers ideas and flows, rather than coming up with something new and innovative on his own.
While his career originally skyrocketed due to his popular and ear-catching sound, Drake’s recent projects have come across as him releasing music just to release music. To fully show that Drake is becoming more comfortable in his middle aged father arc, we can look at him featuring his six year old son Adonis on his song “Daylight”. Clearly he doesn’t have as much pull or unique sounding songs as he used to, as he used his kid to draw attention from the mainstream media. Why else would he put such a wack verse and feature on a song. To answer the question, “has Drake become mid?”, we can answer it in only one word: indubitably.
