Once again the herald angels are singing, for Aubrey Drake Graham has graced our terrestrial planet with another sprawling collection of emotional music. Enter Dark Lane Demo Tapes, a deceptively-named mixtape full of demos that aren’t really demos. New Drake and old Drake’s past several iterations all have glaring commonalities: the tracklists and runtimes of his records are gargantuan by industry standards, songs that fuzz around the edges and become indistinguishable from one another are a dime a dozen, and his mixtape efforts can be convoluted (excluding the stellar and straightforward If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late).
After the creative peak of Nothing Was the Same, the extended wait for another LP saw the potency of Drake-as-a-brand diluted. Views and Scorpion offered rapidly diminishing returns as Take Care-grade emotional vulnerability was watered down, repurposed, and inflated to the size of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Yet Drake remains an industry titan, and his music is consistently enjoyable, even if that can only be attributed to how shiny and polished it all is.
Care Package, released in August 2019, was a well-meaning and well-executed compilation record consisting of previously leaked songs, or ones that were not treated to a wide-release. It accompanied the distribution of Drake’s first mixtape, So Far Gone, to all streaming services, and combined for a one-two punch of dramatic Drake nostalgia reminiscent of a time where he seemed to care less about beefing with anyone. With Dark Lane Demo Tapes, a less-versatile collection of songs is billed as an appetizer for an upcoming LP to be released this summer, but the act of previewing the future with fuzz from the past doesn’t ring as true this time around.
Despite Dark Lane arriving already lukewarm – debuting at number two and breaking Drake’s streak of chart-topping debuts – if deconstructed, bits and pieces offer exciting glimmers of hope that the crossover artist’s next actual album may signal a return to form. “War”, produced by UK drill ambassador Axl, keeps things high and tight as Drake bounces around the haunting Jupiter synth-led instrumental, retreating from anything resembling a hook and instead relying on contorting his flow to retain interest.
Drake-isms will always abound (“I don’t cop things for resale, don’t do iCloud, don’t do email” is very much the same Drake who “don’t take naps” from “Gyalchester”) but they’re the tokens that keep repeat users coming back. “Not You Too” is a song we’ve heard before (“Redemption”, “Faithful”, “Fire & Desire” – all just from Views), but it nevertheless exists as a slow-burn R&B track filled with simmering heat and featuring Chris Brown but not too much Chris Brown. “Pain 1993” is behind the curve and would’ve blown up two years ago, but it still feels like Drake stepping out of his comfort zone into a world that makes sense for him, though with production from Pi’erre Bourne, the guest verse and ad libs from Playboi Carti end up feeling way more at home than Drake when he’s trying to fit in.
All in all, Dark Lane Demo Tapes won’t read as a standout in Drake’s catalog – now or ever. The endearing annoyingness of the lazy hook on “Toosie Slide” will persevere in the collective conscious thanks to TikTok, and “Chicago Freestyle” and “D4L” will weave in and out of playlists due to their palatability and general vague cheesiness. Each Drake project seems poised to pander to everyone and no one, all at once, asking, “Do you think this is better than my last album?” Here, the answer is no. With his gauche Architectural Digest profile and the relative brevity of Dark Lane, it can be assumed Drake’s gunning for something big with his next album. Maybe it won’t be 90 minutes long.
Written by: Mike Floeck
Photo Credit: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images
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