Drake ft. Nicki Minaj – Make Me Proud
Yesterday I ate two cookies, so god knows how little Drake thinks of me…
[Video][Website]
[5.25]
Katherine St Asaph: Cosmopolitan: “What’s the secret to a happy relationship?” Fucking Drake, to ladymag: “Acceptance. You’ve got to be comfortable enough to be completely naked with lights on and the curtains open.” Fucking Drake, on record: “[Her] running on a treadmill and only eating salad.”
[1]
Hazel Robinson: What makes Drake proud? When yo ass still wet because you just took a shower. That’s right, not only is Drake a fucking damp patch, he’s fucking thrilled about bringing others down to his level. There’s a hook and a Nicki Minaj guest verse that kick seven shades of shit out of Fuck Off Drake, but his miasmic terribleness, mumbling sub-inanities into what was presumably the rough direction of the microphone, is so world-crushingly awful it pisses any spark of promise sodden. If you like blunt poppy emo, Travie McCoy is doing it; if you like weird introspective emo, then Frank Ocean is doing it; if you haven’t worked out how to dry your own arse yet, then perhaps this song is what you’ve been looking for.
[2]
Josh Langhoff: Drake’s condescension toward Girl comes across as barely concealed spite borne of jealousy. The layered look becomes him; so does actually having a tempo for once.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Evoking “Control Myself” but substituting Drake’s aggressive nasality for LL Cool J’s cool, the two stars acquit themselves with professionalism, well aware of how many jobs would be lost if this flopped. But as usual, Nicki Minaj’s wit renders her partners into remedial English graduates.
[6]
Jer Fairall: The sentiment verges on patronizing, but his inventory of her accomplishments highlights her intelligence and strength, making this sound sweet and even generous. Too bad it is all so intent on being nice that it winds up resembling the kind of toothless things that Nicki is squandering too much of her talent on, with even her raps finding her scraping the bottom of her considerable bag of tricks.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Thanks to T-Minus, I now know the sound of a running water heater can be expressed on a musical scale. My major issue with Drake of late: his hooks suck. I keep thinking he’s breaking into song, like a Ghostface-style reverie, but no. Maybe if he’d made the song specifically about how great Minaj he is; her verse earned it.
[5]
Michelle Myers: He is always declaring his love for her; she is always dismissing it as a joke between friends. They’re all fake weddings and at-replies, the kind of buddies who “pretend” they’re dating. He spends the whole song declaring his mostly platonic admiration for her. She takes the verse from him and praises herself. Somewhere out there, weird fans make “Dricki” shipping gifs from the “Moment 4 Life” video. For them, this song will essentially be a piece of fanfiction. For me, it is a striking ode to heterosocial friendship. Against a squelchy, desaturated beat they sound more like real people than ever — Aubrey without 40’s melancholia and Onika with no wigs and no cartoon voices.
[9]
Zach Lyon: God help me, I like this. I hate everything about it, but I like it. I hate Drake’s entire attitude, his apparent fetishization over the girl’s apparent past. I hate how he sounds even more annoying when he tries to play the upper-hand rather than the mopey hand or the insecure hitting-on-pretty-ladies-I’m-so-lucky!! hand. Even more annoying that his true cockiness only comes out when he’s dealing with his idea of damage. I don’t like how Nicki’s verse only teases at her previous feature domination, but I do love the little “million billion trillion miles away” bit. And I love the chorus. That’s really it. Of course it’s the most condescending bullshit you’ll hear from him, but I love when it gets stuck in my head, and it always draws me back like salty crap food.
[7]
Wow, seriously (re: Cosmo)? Fucking Drake, indeed.
I presume he means is ‘only people who get on the treadmill and eat salad should feel accepted.’ I really do not understand the sustained popularity of this epic, incompetent douche.
The fact that anyone finds this sweet (fans excluded, as always) scares me. My blurb’s the most irritating, but it’s got more: negging that even pick-up artists would call too obvious (the “you sound so smart! but nah, you probably went to Howard” bit, among others), the “attitude problem” bit which probably doubles as a handy dismissal of anything she ever has to say for herself.
“I presume he means is ‘only people who get on the treadmill and eat salad should feel accepted.’”
Of course that’s not what he means! There’s a trope in modern hip-hop, one that Drake has engaged in before (seriously, have you “Fancy”?), of praise for the sheer effort and money that most women feel obligated to put into appearances. It’s problematic because women shouldn’t have to invest so much in their looks. It perpetuates the idea that working on your body is important and good. But to say he’s telling all people who don’t work out and diet that they shouldn’t feel accepted is a bit of stretch.
And I don’t think the Howard line is a neg! I think he thinks it’s cool that she went to a historically black college while being smart enough for the Ivy League.
Only eating salad isn’t a diet, it’s disordered eating. I guess she could be only eating Caesar salads slathered in dressing and cheese, but somehow I doubt that’s what Drake means.
The more I think about this, the more it absolutely infuriates me. I gave this a [1] and not a [0] because it’s not a bad song, but my criteria for a [0] includes “actively makes the world a worse place,” which this undeniably does.
So part of Drake’s appeal is that he’s supposed to be sensitive, no? And that’s supposed to endear himself to girls, right? This is the opposite of sensitive, and the prospect of anyone, female or otherwise, finding this endearing is quite frankly scary. There’s an excellent way not to accept yourself, and it’s having things like this be the standards. Maybe they were only Drake’s standards at first, but now that this is a song, they’re practically everyone’s.
And forgive me for not exactly being impressed that these are phrased as compliments, given that I’ve been complimented by multiple people only to find out, months later, that they were lying the whole time. Including today, because today was obviously when I needed to hear that.