Then, with the opening strings of now-ubiquitous first single “Over,” he kicks off the album proper with a string of star-studded club bangers and sticky-sweet Autotune-fueled sex jams.

“Fireworks” is the most interesting of these-a minimalist duet with Alicia Keys that sounds like an 808s & Heartbreak b-side. The front end of Thank Me Later sees Drake addressing his fame head-on with a trio of barebones, confessional songs about lost love, money, women and fame-the usual notes he’s been hitting for three years now.

This, in turn, makes Thank Me Later an even more complex balancing act: pleasing his massive fanbase while trying to live up to the considerable critical hype that’s already made him just as visible as every other rap superstar of the moment. And it’s a problem Drake created for himself, or certainly didn’t try to solve-this is the same guy who once bragged about “buzz so big I could probably sell a blank disc.”Īs an artist who can sing and rap with equal zeal, he’s been aggressively courting R&B lovers and hip-hop heads with three years’ worth of high-profile mixtape releases. So it goes for actor-turned-rapper Drake with Thank Me Later, the debut studio album from Lil Wayne’s brightest and most visible Young Money protégé. It’s difficult to manage expectations when you’ve been called the Next Big Thing in the hip-hop game for a year running.

Drake thank me later album release date