If You're Reading This, It's Not Too Late

About a week ago (week ago), Toronto-based rapper Drake released a 17-song mixtape entitled If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late with no publicity or prior announcement. Drake had his work cut out for him, as it was going to be very difficult to follow up the success of his most recent single, “0 to 100 / The Catch-Up,” and most will tell you that he succeeded. The album has received a variety of reactions from critics and fans, some loving it and others underwhelmed by the album after it spawned a wave of hype upon its release.

It opens with the track “Legend,” which sports a slow, smooth beat and half-sung lyrics, followed by “Energy,” a faster and more trap-influenced song which quickly climbed the charts, becoming the album’s most popular song.

Two clear stand-outs for me are “Know Yourself” and “6 God.” “Know Yourself” flaunts a spacey, ethereal beat and Drake’s signature crooning vocal style. It also boasts one of the album’s most memorable and quotable choruses, which brings a unique energy to the song despite its slow tempo. “6 God” also brings a quotable hook, but is, in many other ways, very different from “Know Yourself.” It has a much faster-paced, bass-driven beat and features Drake rapping rather than singing.

Many of the songs contain references to Drake’s home city of Toronto, which Drake has nicknamed “The 6” due to two of the city’s area codes containing the number 6. A listener can see this without looking much further than the song titles—“6 God,” “6 Man” and “You and the 6,” to name a few—and one can only assume we’ll only be seeing more of this as we look forward to his upcoming album, Views From the 6.