Drake: "Marvin's Room"

Let me just begin by saying that I understand why revulsion is a common reaction to Drake, and that I accept that what I perceive in his music to be a certain kind of genius others will find ultimately slight or even shallow. I’ve come to appreciate that Drake, despite his populist chart dominance, is not for everyone.

But of the many recurring charges leveled at him by his legions of detractors, the only one which strikes me as completely irreconcilable with what’s plainly there in the man’s music is this much-belabored idea that Drake is egregiously self-indulgent. It’s true that Drake’s own rapid ascension to the upper echelons of celebrity is the principal subject of many of his songs, and the thematic concerns of both Thank Me Later (2010) and So Far Gone (2009) together form a picture of their author so complete as to be nearly diaristic—which for many haters is indistinguishable from narcissism and, perhaps more damningly, self-indulgence. But I would counter by noting, to paraphrase Richard Brody, that simply being alive is a sufficiently compelling subject for art and reason enough to write rap music about oneself. That in addition to being alive he is also rich and famous is even better.

What’s called “narcissism” here strikes me instead as self-reflection, which is a quality to which I believe we ought to aspire. What’s called “self-indulgent,” though, strikes me as outright incorrect: “indulgence” implies excess and vulgarity, the embellishment of every gesture tastelessly. And yet Drake continually does just the opposite, exercising remarkable restraint in everything from guest selection to production choices to structure and pacing; his craft is considerably more measured and intelligent than knee-jerk criticisms give him credit for. We might consider, too, that even a moderately indulgent star might be expected to run something of a victory lap after releasing one of the best (and best-selling) rap albums of the last year, when the world expects the presence of a star to persist and when failing to deliver means risking a return to irrelevance. If ever there were an acceptable time for Drake to go hard with a major single, something irreverent and conspicuously dumb, now would most certainly be it.

“Marvin’s Room” is not that single—not by a fucking long shot. This is the complete opposite of “Forever,” the enormous (and enormously stupid) single which bridged the downtime between Drake’s acclaimed So Far Gone mixtape and his major label debut, and the only truly indulgent, blimp-sized hit he’s ever fronted. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that the first advance single from his forthcoming sophomore LP could have formally and exclusively debuted just about anywhere, and that such a debut could have qualified as a pretty major event. That Drake opted to instead leak “Marvin’s Room” straight to his personal blog in the middle of the night to absolutely zero fanfare is a testament to just how genuinely Drake believes in the value of his work rather than the particulars of the spectacle which surrounds it.

This decidedly unspectacular unveiling seems appropriate, though, given the restrained, low-key style of “Marvin’s Room” itself. If there’s an aesthetic precedent for the song’s practically somnambulant tone in Drake’s earlier work, it can be found in “Successful,” a So Far Gone highlight marked by a similar use of negative space, though longtime collaborator Noah “40” Shebib’s production is substantially more nuanced here. It’s lyrically, though, where “Marvin’s Room” approaches a certain kind of perfection, describing a very candid moment of shame and self-loathing with a surprising degree of perceptiveness. Drake’s earlier expressions of self-deprecation often carried with them an air of implicit justification, as if by acknowledging his mistakes he could justify continuing to make them. “Marvin’s Room” lacks any explicit disavowal of its own misbehavior, but because that misbehavior is so flagrant and self-damning even without Drake coming right out and acknowledging it, the reflection is relegated entirely to subtext. “Marvin’s Room” is thus both a more richly realistic work and, crucially, a more emotionally complex one.

It’s difficult to imagine a man as famous and successful as Drake sinking to such a level of loneliness and desperation as to call an ex-lover in the middle of the night—and even more difficult to imagine him singing about it, since rap is more commonly a vehicle for wish-fulfillment and self-aggrandizing—but that’s part of what makes “Marvin’s Room” such a deeply humanizing song. That seemingly straight-forward but ever so slightly condescending question “are you drunk right now?” speaks volumes here, and if you’ve ever called any sober person drunk in your life you’ll know the sting of that line intimately. This comes from an artist, recall, who penned the ultimate one-up couplet: “Oh that was your girl? / I thought I recognized her.” That Drake has now willingly cast himself as the pathetic, drunk, ultimately rejected old boyfriend is pretty astounding.

This kind of disarming self-awareness isn’t entirely without precedent in his catalog, but it’s never been this pronounced or this sophisticated. In fact, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that “Marvin’s Room” is Drake’s strongest song to date—or at least the song which most incisively and resonantly expresses the themes with which he’s always been obsessed. I think it’s probably time to start getting excited about that new album.