With Take Care on the horizon, the fourth track off Drake’s sophomore LP sees October’s Very Own representing his beloved hometown of Toronto after admitting that he had Canada on his mind upon first listening to the beat (“I automatically thought of the city that I miss so much. This record is just more about the OVOXO movement and just being proud to be from Toronto.”)
Ably assisted by R&B’s MVP of 2011 and fellow Toronto native Abel Tesfaye, better known to the world as The Weeknd, Drake raps over another moody, narcotic beat that would not look out of place in House of Balloons, paying his habitual homage to the good life while staying in retrospective mode in what has become the archetypal Aubrey trademark (“Smoking weed under star projectors/I guess we’ll never know what Harvard gets us/But seeing my family have it all/Took the place of that desire for diplomas on the wall…”)
But the real star is the 21-year old newcomer Tesfaye, who croons comfortably through the hypnotic ambience of ‘Crew Love’s downbeat instrumental, and further solidifies his claim as R&B’s most promising talent since D’Angelo reinvented soul during the mid-90s. Being called “one of the greatest artists he has ever heard” by Drake himself, after a brilliant collaboration and numerous appearances on tour, is a pretty huge co-sign for The Weeknd, having been a relative unknown only ten months ago.
Them Internet minutes are counting down at a rapid rate. Take Care drops November 14th.
Words by Oumar S. Mussa
