Yet, fear struck again with the release of the first official single, “Headlines,” and only rose with the second, “Make Me Proud.” The former was as dull an “I’m Drake and I’m really cool” song as he’s made, while the Nicki Minaj collab couldn’t have been a more obvious pander to his female audience, right down to its silly hook. The mission statement for album #2 was clear: to create an actual piece of music, rather than simply entertainment. In other words, true substance seemed to have entered his music once again. “Fuck that nigga you love so much,” he sings, and unlike the usual Drake quip, it meant something: he wants what he wants, and he’ll harm those he intends to care about to get it. She’s just a fascination, Drake desires her, but that’s where it stops. Rather than the trite, “Shooting stars all around her, fire, comets” class of lines from the last album, the listener is faced with a drunk, pampered star desperately slithering words out on the phone, trying to woo the girl he wants from another man. “Marvin’s Room,” still a highlight on the finished product, presented a Drake we hadn’t seen before, at least since he signed with Young Money. The best thing was, for the most part, they were good songs.
![drake take care album with bonus tracks drake take care album with bonus tracks](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/drake-2000s-birthday-party.jpg)
He even took it to his label for taking down the links.
#DRAKE TAKE CARE ALBUM WITH BONUS TRACKS SERIES#
He began by creating goodwill with a series of self-leaks. Even Drake himself recently came out against the record. Drake seemed afraid of his potential power, caught between a hunger for genuine respect he at least claims to seek and the massive audience he had created with “Best I Ever Had.” The result was a muted, half-hearted attempt at a “Drake sound”, smothered by polish and dull punchlines. Then things got confusing: Thank Me Later simply wasn’t very good, whichever way you looked at it. People considered So Far Gone either the future or completely offensive, and it was both of those strong reactions that helped catapult Drake to the forefront of the rap game. Much of the music being made today under the name of “rap” attracts an entirely new audience, and the old demographic stubbornly - and futilely - resists the invaders, leaving rappers to entertain a bickering, divided audience. The truth, of course, is that rap has entirely left behind its birthrights. The time of beef had come and gone, but how did one reconcile the days when a picture ruined a career with, well, this? In other words, the hip-hop community had no idea what to do with this guy.
![drake take care album with bonus tracks drake take care album with bonus tracks](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Et0AB-FCL._AC_.jpg)
The new star had absorbed the most hype the rap game had seen since Get Rich or Die Tryin’, with a soap-opera background rather than the benefit of nine bullet wounds.
![drake take care album with bonus tracks drake take care album with bonus tracks](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/Drake_Care_Package_cover.jpg)
It all just seemed to work out for Drizzy. In the rarest of instances, all the pieces simply fell perfectly in place: Drake hopped on the Kanye bandwagon when it was still cool, caught the eye of Lil’ Wayne just before he toppled from his peak, collaborated with Marshall Mathers as he arose from the ashes of the old Shady into the new Eminem marketing juggernaut. The Canadian star’s rise to fame - even to his detractors - is undeniably unparalleled. ‘Thank Me Later,’ he said, and with that, Drake had a problem.