K-SCORE: 79
Rapper: Drake
I like Drake, but I don't know a lot about his lesser known work. So instead of giving Kyle a really popular song like "Over" or "HYFR", I turned to my resident Drake expert, Dre. He chose "Dreams Money Can Buy". I listened to it once, liked it and sent it to Kyle. If you haven't heard it, I recommend listening to it while you read the review. Here's what Kyle thought.
-Mike
Dreams Money Can Buy - This is easily my favorite title of any of the raps I’ve reviewed so far. Drake, right away you introduce what your rap is going to be about while alluding to something else that plays an important behind-the-scenes roll: there are dreams that money can’t buy.
Drake, I’ve had high hopes for you ever since your “Deuces” verse suggested you have about 15 IQ points more than the next highest guy in that song. Dreams Money Can Buy didn’t knock my socks off, but it’s pretty fantastic. So many of these raps are about a gangster lifestyle that involves expensive automobiles, drugs, dangerous areas, crime, and women used for sex, and while my reviews are always going to lean towards appreciating raps that do something different, I can respect when a rapper does the gangster lifestyle rap very well. And that’s what you’ve accomplished here.
I would never have envisioned that the lyric “don’t f*ck with me, don’t f*ck…” could be turned into such an effective chorus. Surrounding your verses with this repeated, high-toned, line and accompanying humming added an eerie quality to your song that also made it slick. Your rap lyrics seem clairvoyant alongside the chorus, which helped detract from the shallow message about being “too busy f*cking” and “f*ck whoever hatin’ on a ni**a.”
The modest beat is the real star of the show here, though, Drake. Your sense of rhythm throughout is impressive enough that I’m convinced if you were to write out your lyrics and hand them to another rapper they couldn’t pull off Dreams Money Can Buy. This lends further credence to the second verse, which is the superior of the two, when you talk about other rappers losing their abilities over time. Instead of just declaring yourself the best rapper alive, like some of these gentlemen (D.J. Khaled, I’m looking at you), you describe a situation where you seem to find yourself having lost respect for most of the others, and see yourself as alone at the top. It’s still arrogant, but way more convincing. “My favorite rappers either lost it or they ain’t alive,” is a great lyric. I’d be curious what the “top five were” and why you now consider them the “remaining five.” This is what I’m talking about when I refer to the dreams that can’t be bought.
You even showcase your singing voice in this at the end when you mention that “you got company coming over,” and you ask your girl, “Would it kill you to put some pants on?” It’s a fine question.
I'm giving this an seventy-nine. I can find fault in numerous places, but that's because it's more substantive than most raps, Drake. My chief concerns are too much time spent on the shallow subject matter and not enough on the deep inner working of your brain. Slowing it down to sing about the girl with the fat ass was stupid. Dreams Money Can Buy is also too short. It could easily have had a third or even fourth verse on this concept without losing its style. I think your reservations come from being unwilling to devote so much time to these cars and women, which you recognize as temporary positive byproducts of this permanently imperfect lifestyle.