Drake: "Headlines"

Lil Wayne is all about refracting the essence of those around him through his indefatigable Wayne-ness, so no wonder he latched on to Drake so quickly. Drake is all essence, a reliable personality who intrigues by further isolating the elements that make him enthralling. “Soap opera rappers / All these niggas sound like All My Children,” he says, but it’s not really true. On “Marvin’s Room” and now “Headlines,” the first singles from the forthcoming Take Care, Drake gets smarter, calmer, and continues to attract stellar production. Only he can do the “empowered intellectual” thing, apparently, and so everybody’s “empowered intellectual” beats end up on his tracks. Nobody on the dial sounds like him.

“I might be too strung out on compliments, overdosed on confidence,” he begins, oddly self-conscious even for someone who made his name by winking at us and his would-be conquests. He’s not just an irritatingly sensitive loverman now; he’s fundamentally conflicted. Still as haughty as ever—“They want to see me pick back up, well where’d I leave it at?”—his haughtiness is more clearly enunciated than ever, his basic prism of fame translating bombast as self-preservation. We’re in Rick Ross or Waka Flocka’s ideological territory now, and it suits Drake well.

If the past few Drake singles—“She Will,” “I’m On One,” “Marvin’s Room,” and “Headlines” (we’ll omit Trey Songz for the good of humanity)—are any indication, increased fame has made him less preening, less needy. His mix of Kanye’s self-consciousness and Wayne’s punchlines continues to slough off their unchecked Ids while reveling in the same template street elements (“the real is on the rise, fuck them other guys” is basically all guys like Meek Mill are saying, ever). Combine that with the beats he gets (here a perfect blend of epic synths and tiny, faux-martial drums from Boy-1da) and the fact that he can sing, and Lil Wayne has some serious competition for 2011’s most underrated omnipresence. Good thing they compliment each other perfectly.