Drake Album 'Compulsively Listenable'

Somehow, rapper Drake recorded an album concerned mostly with “the stresses and travails of fame, even if he recorded the damn thing when he wasn’t famous in any meaningful way”—and then became famous thanks to said album, writes Tom Breihan for Pitchfork. Though he’s “not a great rapper,” Drake’s So Far Gone “still scans as one of the most compulsively listenable mixtapes of a great year for mixtapes.”

Drake, the Lil Wayne protégé who went from an actor on Canada’s Degrassi: The Next Generation to Rihanna’s maybe-boyfriend, struggles with “halting and awkward” lyrics that “barely even make sense” half the time. But “when he swings from rapping to buttery teen-idol singing, it feels organic and effortless, like he’s just doing whatever makes the most sense at any given moment.”