@Brantley Brooks

Discover new music from artists we think you'll like. Refreshed every Friday.

While the worlds of R&B and hip-hop have long been filled with players and heartbreakers, Drake established another male persona, one who expressed strength by actually showing vulnerability. And whether the track itself is as sly and swaggering as “One Dance,” as sensitive and brooding as “Shot for Me,” or straight-up celebratory as “Best I Ever Had,” Drake’s love songs are full of compelling contradictions.

Drake officially became the voice of a generation with 2011’s sumptuous <i>Take Care</i>, a career-defining magnum opus that earned a prized slot in Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list. Was he an R&B singer who rapped or a rapper who sang? Was he really that sad, or just exploiting a cultural preference for male vulnerability? Adding to the slipperiness of it all, any given Drake project might incorporate dreamy house and club music into his comfort zone of rap, pop, and R&B with equal conviction. Even after cementing his prowess as an MC many times over, Drake still retains the capacity to surprise. His 2015 earworm “Hotline Bling” radiated universal cool without breaking a sweat, while 2024’s “Push Ups” arrived during his fleeting beef with Kendrick Lamar yet applies lasting heat to its minimalistic prowl. Drake is now such a part of the firmament that his slightest move can trigger aftershocks far beyond his immediate reach.

Drake can go from being a crooning R&B loverman to spiky rapper in the blink of an eye, and that knack for stylistic shifts is particularly apparent on his less famous cuts. The inflatable synths of The-Dream duet “Shut It Down” tease out one of Drizzy's prettiest ballads; meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum is the ghostly beat of barbed hip-hop cut “Charged Up,” a ruthless diss track aimed at his rival Meek Mill.