Is The Hype for “Certified Lover Boy” Insurmountable?

Again paying homage to his mainstream counterpart Kanye West, Drake has once again postponed the release of his upcoming album “Certified Lover Boy,” with speculation over this album reaching a boiling point. Instead of releasing “CLB,” Drake has instead been promoting “NOCTA,” his new clothing line with Nike, and posting gym videos of his rehab since injuring his knee last year. Drake intended to release the album during the summer of 2020 before Covid-19 amongst other things caused the OVO boss to push the album release to what was meant to be some time this January, which Drake has now changed to a vague 2021 date. Hopes were high again when multiple pictures of Drake in the studio hit social media in the first weeks of 2021, but it seems that Drake’s rehab is hindering his ability to be fully focused in the studio. But with an odd reaction to both “Scorpion” and his pandemic project “Dark Lane Demo Tapes,” expectations for “Certified Lover Boy” may be getting too high for even the 6 God.

It’s been a wild ride in Hip-Hop these last 10 years since Drake released his Grammy-winning “Take Care.” Since then his career has been a never-ending soap opera filled with #1 records, baby reveals, legendary rivalries, and a level of artistic dominance that few could ever even dream of. So what role will “Certified Lover Boy” play? Will it be his best project yet, or just another addition to albums in the “just not as good as ‘Take Care’” club? Expectations in Hip-Hop can be dangerous, and many artists set themselves up for failure by constantly hyping the release of a project, then constantly pushing it back until the hype becomes insurmountable. 

It’s easy to assume that Drake will drop an extensive project balanced with radio hits and late-night B sides. Drake’s great run started in 2011 with “Take Care,” tapping into more than just his double threat talents with both Hip-Hop and R&B cuts, it was the first time Drake was a cultural phenomenon, single-handedly making “YOLO” one of the most used words of the year. Drake returned to music in 2013 with the commercially successful “Nothing was the Same,” supported by smash hit singles like “Started from the Bottom” and “Just Hold On, We’re Going Home”. While “NWTS” did receive a lot of praise and began to show his evolution into a popstar, there were some who felt it did not recreate the magic that “Take Care” did. Drake would again leave fans simultaneously outraged and overly satisfied in 2015 with his next project “If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late,” another album carried by its radio hits, while still supplying OG Drake fans with late-night songs to cry to, and Instagram captions. These three albums are widely regarded as Drake’s prime, and while “More Life” and “Views” solidified Drake’s international pop icon status, fans and critics alike still wondered whether Drake can make a full project as good as “Take Care.”

Hopefully “Certified Lover Boy” will be the album to put all the doubters to rest, but if there’s one thing we can be certain of, it is when this newest Drake offering drops it will take over the radio waves and the internet for the next several months. But is that enough anymore? 

As diehard fans wait for a return to the artistic prowess Drake enjoyed in the early 2010s, the numbers he put up in the second half of the 2010s don't lie, Drake is one of the biggest artists in the world. He has nothing left to prove now holding some of the biggest records in music history, especially in the streaming era. But what does Drake satisfying the fans genuinely look like when his sound is so diverse? Is it a massive collection of hits or high-level R&B cuts? Is it the balance of two sounds, or the balance of a few? 

While there’s no real reason to believe that Drake will release his best album yet, this second postponing may be a sign that he’s focusing more than usual, paying extra attention to the details. We learned from “What a Time to Be Alive” that Drake can manifest hits overnight, but Drake’s last few projects haven’t been lacking hits, they’ve been lacking strength on the B side cuts of the album. Even when Drake dedicated the B Side of “Scorpion” to his R&B sound it started slow, and more so ended up being carried by “In My Feelings” and “Nice for What”, both of which have a pop crossover sound. But between these few years as a father along with everything else in the world, Drake has had a lot to reflect on, and that’s when Drake’s at his best. So while the algorithms will run the Canadian his money, we still have to wonder, will we get deeply reflective ‘Take Care’ cover Drake or popstar Drizzy? 

While his reign from 2011 to 2015 made me a diehard fan, from 2016 on I’ve felt like Drake has spent more time making music that will increase his relevance rather than solidify his greatness as a recording artist. I expect him to give us the R&B songs about love like usual, but I wonder what he will surround it with. At this point, it could be drill, dancehall, trap, or soulful samples. Drake has acquired all the artistic infinity stones, but going off “Dark Lane Demo Tapes,” I expect Drake to try to make the best emotionally reflective music he can. If he’s gonna call himself a “certified lover boy”, I’ll need voicemails from exs and a follow up to “Marvin’s Room,” or in other words, peak emotional expression.