♦
Drake shifted rap in observable ways, the most important being that he commoditized the investigation of heartache better than any rapper ever had, and that made it an acceptable business model, and so now there are one hundred thousand rappers rapping about their ninth-grade girlfriend, and you can go either way with that. But there’s also his relationship with the Internet.
His music had traveled from Canada to Houston via the Internet, and then from there to Lil Wayne,7 so there’s an actual functional aspect there. But he was the first (and thus far only) rap giant that the Internet actualized, and from there it was fine if the Internet was part of your origin story. The Internet tried to push Wale up into the clouds in 2008, but Wale was always too goofy and never interesting enough for the throne. It tried to shove Kid Cudi up there after that, too, but Cudi was always too weird and too untrustworthy to be given the crown. There were others, and there will certainly be others to come,8 but those were the first true ones. And they failed. Drake was the one.
I remember watching Drake in concert early on in his career—this was right around the time Thank Me Later had crystallized his arrival; it shipped more than a million copies, he’d been nominated for five Grammys, all that.
Near the end of the show, he stopped the music and asked for the lights to be turned up. Then he started pointing out people in the crowd, making jokes, engaging them. He did it with the same ease that Dave Chappelle does stand-up,9 the same ease that Jay Z interacts with interviewers. It’s always been easy to see that Drake was a king.
REBUTTAL: “LEMONADE” GUCCI MANE
Gucci Mane was in prison when 2009 started, and he was back in when it ended. He still found a way to own the year completely. In the eight or so months Gucci was free, he rapped on hundreds of songs, cranked out mixtapes at a baffling rate, and had more fun talking shit than anyone else. Gucci made it possible to be the hardest rapper out there while playing nursery-rhyme language games, wheezing like a grandma, and making entire (great) songs about how he was “wonderful” or “gorgeous.” “Lemonade” was Peak Gucci. It banged hard enough to start club riots, despite being a goofy meditation on the color yellow with a maddening kids’-choir sample. Its stupidity transcends: “Lemonade my townhouse in Miami, I want yellow carpet / Woke up in the morning, fuck it, bought a yellow Aston Martin.” Gucci’s mania, the thing that made him great, derailed his career soon enough. But we’ll always have his 2009.
—TOM BREIHAN
Drake’s Mood
Clockwise from top left: So Far Gone, 2009; Thank Me Later, 2010; Take Care, 2011; Nothing Was the Same, 2013
Blue=Happy, Green=Angry, Red=Sad, Purple=Indifferent
[Methodology: Listened to Drake’s first four tapes. Tracked each instance Drake said something that could be considered evidence he was feeling happy, angry, sad, or indifferent. Turned info in pie charts.]
1. The Juno Awards are “Canada’s Music Awards.” You have to have lived in Canada for at least the last six months of the eligibility process to receive one.
2. The ESPYs are sports awards handed out by ESPN. (You can live wherever you want.)
3. Lance Stephenson played for the Indiana Pacers when Drake did the ear-blow thing. He plays for the Charlotte Hornets as I write this. Fingers crossed he stays there a bit so that this tiny section is accurate. I had not anticipated being emotionally invested in where a toothsome shooting guard works when I started writing a book, but that’s just the way the universe works sometimes.
4. So Far Gone, which Drake ultimately rebundled and rereleased as a seven-song EP for sale. It was somehow the ninth-best-selling rap album of 2009, despite having only two new songs on it and despite having been released in September.
5. I don’t know if you follow basketball a lot or not, but 42–4 is not that great of a score.
6. 808s & Heartbreak is a mammoth album, and its influence has been just as big as any other album he’s made. It’s his third-best solo album. It goes: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Graduation, 808s, Late Registration, Yeezus, The College Dropout.
7. Jas Prince, son of J. Prince, founder of Houston’s Rap-A-Lot Records, is credited with having put Drake’s tape in front of Lil Wayne.
8. Compton’s twitchy Kendrick Lamar will hopefully get there next.
9. Before he went nuts, obvs.
WHAT THIS SONG IS ABOUT
It’s about things that are associated with literal monsters and also things that are associated with figurative monsters.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
It loudly marks the exact point Nicki Minaj became undeniable and also quietly marks the moment Kanye West began making radio singles that weren’t structured like traditional radio singles.
There’s this clip of Nicki Minaj from back before she was very famous, and it’s part of a mixtape DVD series called The Come Up1 (basically just videos of rappers rapping in the street stitched together). In the clip, she looks not at all like what she looks like today, which is to say alternating between a box of highlighters and a vampire very interested in sex. She’s wearing a silly brown zip-up hoodie with writing all over it, and she’s also wearing very ordinary jeans and a silly black patrol cap with buttons on it. Her hair is all the way black and straight, and it looks nice enough to not look like an afterthought, but it also doesn’t look premeditated and central to her creative existence like it has since 2010.
When the video opens up, Minaj is rapping about things (Chinatown, Big Pun’s weight, a car the color of bubble gum, etc.), then there’s a small break, then Minaj begins an a cappella rap, then she stops and begins talking about how she only became a rapper because she happened to be so naturally good and devastating at it, which doesn’t sound like a lie. Then she says, “That’s why I act the way I act. [But] don’t get it twisted. If you see me, holler at me. I’m never too ill to say ‘what up.’ Like, it’s not that serious. Trust me, I know that.”
In November 2010, Nicki Minaj was scheduled to make an appearance at an unattractive nightclub off a major freeway in Houston, Texas. I was working for the alt-weekly in Houston at the time, so I was supposed to be there to cover it. And I was excited, inasmuch as someone can be excited about standing in a nightclub for a couple of hours. This was about a week before her first album, Pink Friday, came out, but still, she had no small amount of buzz around her, owing to an impressive couple of mixtapes and guest-feature runs, as well as the backing of Lil Wayne, who had helped turn Drake into a megastar the year before behind nearly an identical set of circumstances. She was scheduled to be there from nine P.M. to two A.M., though nobody honestly expected her to get there until midnight, and it was $35 to get into the club that evening, so that meant we were all paying $17.50 per hour to stand in the same building as her.
Just prior to her arriving, a short man wearing a lot of cologne who was working as one of the event’s promoters went around and told all of the members of the media2 that nobody was allowed to take any pictures of her while she was there. He said something close to, “Her management said she’d leave if she saw one single camera,” or something equally dramatic. I didn’t understand why, because what’s the point of making a scheduled appearance if not to be photographed appearing? But the tone was set, and the instructions were firm: Any cameras and she’d leave. He was very serious. She was very serious.
She played at cocky on the DVD but felt the need to explain it away immediately afterward. She played at silly as she began method-acting her way toward stardom, but felt the need to have a handler explain her seriousness. It was an inversion.
And in between both of those moments is her verse on “Monster,” which changed her everything immediately.
♦
“Monster” has a bunch of pieces. Let’s go in reverse order, from least to most impactful.
BON IVER, BUT REALLY JUSTIN VERNON
Bon Iver is a group, not a person, first of all. They’re a folk band, to be slightly more accurate, and Justin Vernon
is their main singer and songwriter. He sings the intro to the song. He told New York magazine’s Vulture.com that Kanye had heard Bon Iver’s album For Emma, Forever Ago and appreciated the way he stretched and contorted his auto-tuned singing, and so that’s why Kanye called him and how Vernon ended up on “Monster,” stretching and contorting his auto-tuned singing at the very beginning of the song. Kanye recorded all of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in Hawaii. He flew the people who were contributing to the album out there to work on it with him. Vernon also told Vulture.com that he and Kanye would start each day by playing basketball. Kanye West shooting a lay-up is my all-time favorite thing to think about.3
HI, RICK ROSS
Rick Ross comes in immediately after Vernon, and he raps a bit, but it’s such a short bit that it’s more fair to say it’s a bridge between Vernon and the rest of the song than a verse itself. Ross was never actually supposed to be on “Monster”; that’s why his verse is so short. He was in Hawaii working with Kanye on a different thing4 and happened into hearing the song, and that led to him being on it. Ross was still floating from the release of Teflon Don, which had come out earlier that year and was (correctly) being called the most lush, most impressive album of his career, and so Kanye siphoned some of Ross’s energy from him for it. Kanye’s a very real master at that sort of thing. More than that: He’s a very true master at extracting only the most essential parts of a person’s creativity. Ross sounds like a hero on “Monster.”
JAY Z: A ZOMBIE WITH A CONSCIENCE
All of the parts of a rap career are represented on “Monster,” and I can’t imagine that’s by accident. There’s Nicki, who was about to become huge but ultimately had not done anything of true note yet. There’s Ross, who was certified and also as influential as anyone in rap that year.5 There’s Kanye, who was an unquestioned star who suddenly became questioned following the blowback from the Taylor Swift debacle.6 And then there’s Jay Z, who checks off the Legend box. There’s one part of the song where he raps, “Sasquatch, Godzilla, King Kong, Lochness / Goblin, ghoul, a zombie with no conscience,” and that’s an easy way to tell that he was eighty-seven years old when this song came out, because only a very old person would answer “Name a monster” with “King Kong.”
KANYE, THE GENIUS
First, there’s the artistry of the song, which was dark and sophisticated and foreboding and helped pull rap in that direction, too, because of the surprising gravity of its beauty.7
Then there’s the construction of the song, which was atypical, especially for a radio single from an album. It’s choppy and unhurried (more than six minutes long) but still energetic and overwhelming, and it seems okay to say that Kanye perfected the traditional radio single with “Gold Digger” in 2005 and then ripped it to shreds for this new version of it five years later.
Then there’s the overarching theme of the song (this villainous, ugly thing trying to become beautiful and lavish by association), which was really an overarching theme of his life.
Then there’s the backstory: how My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was the (gorgeous) result of his having his flesh peeled from his bones after his drunken and swollen attempt at valor at the 2009 VMAs;8 how it was a pitch-perfect coalescence of his creative existence (which was, and is, mostly adored) and his personal existence (which was, and is, mostly loathed); and how “Monster” was the most obvious signal of his awareness of the conundrum on the album and of his career.
Also, he rhymed “sarcophagus” with “esophagus,” and that’s (probably) the first time that had ever happened.
NICKI MINAJ, AND THE VERSE THAT CHANGED HER CAREER, AND RAP, TOO
Writing about Nicki Minaj’s verse on “Monster” is like writing about the solar system or Steph Curry’s jump shot, in that words can be used to describe it, but none ever hold all of what it is or does. Picture an atomic bomb going off inside of a bank vault, or picture someone pumping your head full of air until it bursts, kind of like the guy from Big Trouble in Little China but not exactly like that. That’s her verse. It twists and bends and she alternates between her characters to have a conversation with herself, and it sounds so perfectly placed and crushing in front of what Kanye created. Complex.com said it was the best rap verse over a five-year period (from 2008 to 2013). The New York Times called it “legendary.” Pitchfork called it “masterfully manic.” On and on and on and on. Picture a submarine filled with neon paint crashing into the sun at light-speed. Picture a hundred thousand parrots dive-bombing right TF into a Mardi Gras parade. It was gargantuan. It was, to be clever, monstrous. That’s what her verse was.
Prior to the release of Pink Friday, there was a modicum of doubt about Nicki Minaj’s potential, specifically after the release of “Massive Attack,” which was supposed to have been the album’s first single. It was a clear departure from her rap-heavy mixtape songs, but not nearly clever enough to survive as a pop single, and so it tanked, and it tanked so badly that it was eventually removed from Pink Friday altogether.
And yet, there she stood, a month away from the release of her first album, anchoring a song that celebrated the bigness of Rick Ross, the mythic Jay Z, and the transcendent return of Kanye West.
“Monster” was built to culminate with Nicki Minaj’s verse, and that Kanye West would do that is indicative of the way she was already being seen by rappers, despite having not even put out an album yet. But “Monster” was really the culmination of her arrival as rap’s next great figure.
REBUTTAL: “HARD IN DA PAINT” WAKA FLOCKA FLAME
“Hard in the Paint,” the most important rap song of 2010, is the ultimate inclusive anthem, that song for anyone who has ever been persecuted, has ever triumphed, or has simply felt passionate about something. You could do the shit out of your taxes to this song. (“I’ma die for this, shorty, man, I swear to God.”) Lex Luger’s simple, minor-key synth line resembles a horror movie score, but the effect is that you are the movie’s protagonist, and the guy with the knife isn’t going to win, you are. It’s not a song about moving silently or putting one over on someone or getting away with something, it’s about doing whatever you want, as loudly as you’d like, in front of whomever (“Broad day, in the air, like this shit is legal”). And it’s perfectly fine if the things you like to do actually are legal; Waka just wants you to get excited. Since his 2010 breakthrough, he’s an increasingly mainstream, inclusive presence, epitomized by his embrace of electronic dance music. He’s doing him. As for you? He’d encourage you to do that, too. —BEN WESTHOFF
Monster
“Bitch, I’m a monster, no-good bloodsucker” (0:24)
“The best living or dead hands down, huh” (0:54)
“Do the rap and the track, triple double no assists” (1:07)
“Bought the chain that always give me back pain” (1:17)
“Fucking up my money so, yeah, I had to act sane” (1:20)
“Have you ever had sex with a pharaoh?” (1:51)
“Goblin, ghoul, a zombie with no conscience” (2:29)
“Love, I don’t get enough of it” (2:57)
“All I see is these niggas I made millionaires, milling about, spilling their feelings in the air” (3:07)
“Okay, first things first I’ll eat your brains” (3:48)
“50K for a verse, no album out” (4:12)
“Just killed another career, it’s a mild day” (4:38)
“Pink wig, thick ass, give ‘em whiplash” (4:46)
“I’m a motherfucking monster” (4:55)
Declarative, Deadly, Thrilling, Aggressive, Considerate, Boastful, Powerful
1. It looks like 2007 or 2008, though I can’t say for certain.
2. I say “all.” There were three of us there.
3. There’s actually a line in “Monster” where he says, “Triple-double, no assists,” and that’s a very Kanye way to get a triple-double, if you ask me. I assume it was points, rebounds, and steals. I just don’t see Kanye getting ten blocks.
&n
bsp; 4. Kanye produced and guest-featured on a song called “Live Fast, Die Young” from Ross’s album Teflon Don.
5. Drake being the one clear exception.
6. It’s bizarre to think about it now, but “Will Kanye recover from this?” was a very real conversation happening at the time. Andre 3000 even told him he had to move out of America.
7. It’s easy to draw a line from “Monster” to gothic Internet rap, which became popular afterward.
8. The Taylor Swift thing (see this page).
WHAT THIS SONG IS ABOUT
It’s about celebrating being able to attain wealth while being black, which is hard. It’s about celebrating being black while wealthy, which is also hard.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
It was the apotheosis of luxury rap, which turned out to be just as biting and trenchant as gangsta rap. (Gangsta rap reported the street-level overt carnage that came with being an underprivileged black male in a society that seemed better equipped to destroy black men than raise them up. Jay Z and Kanye’s luxury rap reported the mental lashing that came with being a wealthy black male in a high society that was better equipped at ignoring wealthy black men than understanding them.)
On Kanye West’s first album, The College Dropout, there’s a song called “All Falls Down.” It’s about being self-conscious, but really it’s about being insecure. In the second verse, West, rapping about shopping above his base-bottom level of consumerism, says, “I can’t even pronounce nothing; pass that Ver-say-see.” It’s a half-joke, but really it’s no joke at all, and this is the point from which we need to stand to see the entirety of the scope of “Niggas in Paris,” because it is a big, big, expansive song, with big, big, expansive ideas.
The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song from Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed Page 25