It’s the return of Fucking Drake! Did you miss him?

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[5.70]

Anthony Easton: There is nothing pleasant and nothing organic here, a variety of metal on metal grindings and it’s almost too lazy for that deliberate ugly to be an aesthetic choice (and as it gets slower — this choice is proving to be even more obnoxious.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Can someone buy Noah Shebib a puppy or something? Between him and fucking Drake the charts sound like a support group.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Yet another tour through a Miami that exists only in the intensest of hydro highs, with a crew of young assholes so numb that they forget to sound like assholes.

[4]

Al Shipley: Khaled’s endless parade of interchangeably triumphant Miami rap anthems needed a change of pace, but I’m not sure if the terminally morose sound of Toronto is a good fit — even Wayne sounds bummed out. If Aubrey had any balls he’d be saying “All I care about is Loonies and the province that I’m from.”
[3]

Renato Pagnani: The Noah “40” Shebib beat is the definition a slowburner, a hazy, expansive thing, all wide-open spaces and seared guitars with the stickiness of an imminent thunderstorm. It’s the kind of track that 40 does better than anyone these days, constructing canvases that are more malleable than blank, more graceful than empty. Drake’s choruses just chew these things up, and this one is another keeper, a hardened battle cry that recalls Jeezy’s “Put On” but twists it into something frayed but still powerful. Weezy sounds locked in while sounding zoned out, and “call[ing] Marc Jacobs personally to make a pair” is probably the least outrageous boast Rozay’s made since he started living in his fantasy world sometime post-Port of Miami. A summer BBQ staple.
[8]

Hazel Robinson: I wish I could avoid jumping into the cycle of people complaining about Drake complaining and Drake writing a song complaining about people complaining about him complaining but sadly, no.
[5]

Andy Hutchins: Drake now batting leadoff on DJ Khaled tracks is about the strangest occurrence of Wheelchair Jimmy’s rap life. He doesn’t have much to say, as ever, but his revved-up flow is at least worlds better than the sing-flow he begins with and the hashtag rap he’s been eschewing of late. The pre-hook and hook are massive in the way that anything that means nothing but sounds good over a squealing synth spiral should be. But Ross and Wayne show they’re in another league, at least when it comes to rap. The burly boss is poetic (“Walkin’ on a cloud, suspended in thin air / The ones beneath me recognize the red bottoms I wear”) and triumphant (“Call Marc Jacobs personally to make a pair”), and that’s his best mode. But Wayne, whose verse sounds like reclining past a 180-degree angle, is as funny as he’s been since prison (“I’m a made n—a, I should dust somethin’ / You n—as on the bench, like the bus comin’”) and lethal with the wordplay (“Choppa dissect a n—a like science” may be the best threat of the year). Every Weezy bar hits, a rarity for him, and that’s what makes this great. In May, DJ Folk tweeted “toronto looking like the new motown man”; tracks like this one, co-produced by Toronto’s Noah “40” Shebib and T-Minus, with an assist from a synth like sunrise stolen from Toronto’s Boi-1da’s playbook, are reason enough to believe that might have some truth to it.
[8]

Michaela Drapes: Though there’s some unexpectedly pretty production here (the only hint of Khaled’s usual silly WE THE BEST bombast comes in the first few seconds), I’m not sure how many more bleak-toned tracks I can take built around Drake’s solipsistic moping. When Rick Ross and Weezy sound this draggy — instead of say, darkly morose or foreboding — that’s kind of a major problem.
[5]

Michelle Myers: I haven’t heard a club rap track with this much pathos in a long time. Drake’s only a year older than me, so I feel him when he says “I ain’t gone this hard since I was 18.” Drake and I are both rich kids from the suburbs–partying was so fun during those late teen days. A half-decade later, and it starts to feel rote. You sip until you feel it; you smoke until it’s done. Rick Ross is 35 and sounds like the most sober person at the club. He reminds us that he still rolls with the same crew he’s always had, and that, once, he made love to the woman of his dreams in a room full of money. Sandwiched between Drake’s bored hedonism and Lil Wayne’s bemused alienation, Ross sounds confident and tranquil. Weezy is 28 but sounds exhausted. We hear a lighter, a quick inhale and then Wayne says “I walk around the club, fuck everybody.” His voice drips with irony when he says “it’s a celebration, bitches, mazel tov.” There’s a special type of misery in being depressed at a party.
[9]

Zach Lyon: I cannot wait for the moment rap/R&B radio stops bringing to mind the tears Drake sheds while he masturbates.
[3]