Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
To say Drake was never going to hold the attention of the masses after the events of 2024 and 2025 would be disingenuous. There’s a pop culture appeal to him that feels Trumpian, not about the politics but rather the cult of personality (The White House would co-opt it, giving that idea even more ammo). He still captures the energy and imagination of fans who believe he’s going to evolve his sound or shed the “rap for the manosphere” persona he’s adopted for the last six years. It’s a conversation that Chris Brown faces whenever he’s preparing to release a new album. Some fans want more; others want something that aligns with photos and videos for Instagram captions.
Thursday night, hip-hop had its first true “event’ moment of 2026 with Drake jumping on YouTube to play music videos from his long-awaited “Iceman” project. He then revealed it would be three albums released at midnight, an OVO overload, or an entree that felt like it had far too many sides dressed up as main courses.
What the Toronto artist gives with his trifecta of new albums isn’t anything new, just extensions of what people have already heard or felt from him. The feelings of paranoia standing side-by-side with so-called friends? Still readily available, except this time they come with the new plot of literally dancing to his demise. Dismissing women like flavors of the week for the slightest bit of autonomy? It never left! That aspect has been in Drake’s music since “Marvin’s Room” and hit an apex with “Hotline Bling”. The latter was a decade ago. The former? If it were a real person, it would be currently studying for a learner’s permit.
“Iceman” rides a moody, almost surly theme from the opening notes and stays that way, aside from the occasional injection of an outside voice (Future, 21 Savage) or a desire for Bay Area escapism (“2 Hard 4 The Radio”). There are moments of revelation, like the opener detailing his thoughts on his dad battling cancer (his dad, Dennis Graham, denied this) and his refusal to continue therapy because he found his therapist attractive (an absolute Drake-like situation, mind you). But for the bulk of it? He’s in the role of a scorned star, wanting those who claimed allegiance to him for a summer to stay on that side.
Songs like “Make Them Cry,” “Make Them Pay,” “Make Them Remember,” and “Make Them Know” read like mantras befitting Pinterest boards or a motivational speech by a man with understood grievances. LeBron James was in 4K dancing to his rival’s most viral song. His record label laughed off his lawsuit regarding said track. Years prior, he was the rapper who turned foes into memes. Now he’d been the butt of jokes on a global stage. And he’s tired of playing along.
On “Iceman,” Drake adopts his newest nickname, “Ice,” and pops at any and everybody who did him wrong within the last two years. On “Make Them Pay,” he lobs a shot toward people running to Jay-Z for advice to do anything: “You n—as run and talk to Hov for a second opinion. Me, I stood ten Ts, and accepted the mission.” With “2 Hard 4 The Radio,” a flip of Mac Dre’s “Too Hard For The F–kin Radio,” Mustard gets a few jabs for allegedly not crafting more hits (“You ain’t had one since me and YG rapped”) and DJ Khaled gets popped for being Palestenian but remaining silent on the Israel/Palestine conflict (“Your people are still waiting for a ‘Free Palestine,’ but apparently everything isn’t black and white and red and green”.)
His harshest moments are saved for the other two members of rap’s “big three,” A$AP Rocky (“K-Y-S-A-S-A-P,” “your baby mama ain’t even post your single”) and James (“Stop asking what’s going on with 23 and me, I’m a real n–a and he’s not). He once again calls Kendrick Lamar short while addressing his authenticity, and has barbs for J. Cole, who famously apologized after releasing a diss toward Kendrick. “I could never forgive you,” Drake says of Cole. “F-ck a big three anyway, there was too many chefs in the kitchen, it was a mess to begin with.”
“Secluding me might have been the worst thing they’ve ever done,” he raps on the album’s penultimate track, a woozy Conductor instrumental where Drake refers to himself as “not the villain or the victim” but the “author.” Even if the opinions of a few suggested he was “done,” if Drake has the pen, the story is getting told his way, where he’s still a winner despite every attack thrown his way. He even raps that he was suing the label, not the rapper, over “Not Like Us,” while still alluding to the song’s popularity as artificial, even though empirical evidence says otherwise.
The 9th solo effort from the rapper who others once called a “stimulus package” mirrors a stance Jay-Z once held with “Blueprint 2.” Filled with thoughts aplomb about loss while still technically being “the man” after a massive battle, Hov used the title track to primarily air out grievances (“cause [he] wear a kufi it don’t mean that he bright”, “is it Oochie Wally Wally or is it One Mic?”) before moving on to craft more hits, retire and become the subject of $500K hypotheticals. “Blueprint 2” felt bloated and Hov knew it, to the point he eventually released a trimmed-down version titled “Blueprint 2.1.” Could Drake have done that with “Iceman,” “Maid of Honour” and “Habibti”? It’s possible, but Drake has built himself to be an entity that fits every box you want him to. A true rap chameleon if there ever was one.
The sharp flows are laced with a hint of disgust at every turn on “Iceman,” almost forever attached to the slow, weaving pocket exhibited on “Middle of the Ocean” from 2022’s “Her Loss.” The singing opts for a monotone in spaces on “Habibti,” a croon that decides, then and there, this song is meant to be heard not in your car but in a dimly lit club packed to the brim with people. And “Maid of Honour” awkwardly begins with a dance number fit for “Honestly, Nevermind,” ironically titled “Hoe Phase,” where the theme of the entire project is experimentation in dancehall, Jersey club, and other genres.
Across 43 songs, the biggest takeaway from the midnight trifecta is what many always knew: Drake still feels wounded over the summer of 2024. He’ll take his pen to ascribe whatever feeling of being a man, as opposed to a massive corporate machine, is, and then give the people his version of it.
Even if online discourse won’t ever let him escape the shadow of his “worst” July.
Brandon Caldwell is a staff writer and journalist at theGrio.com, where he contributes his expertise in music and pop culture. With a career spanning over a decade, Brandon has established himself as a prominent voice in music journalism, previously serving on the Audience Engagement team at ESPN and as the Online Editor for Radio One Houston.
