Pop rappers Aubrey “Drake” Grahm and Future recently dropped “What a Time to Be Alive.” Considering Drake and Future have two different styles of rapping, this album came together as a whole and was a great mix of the two artists. For example, Drake tends to rap and sing about insecurities and troubles with women opposed by Future’s rapping style, which is considered mumbling trap. The album starts off with a song called “Digital Dash,” which is fairly similar to a couple of other songs on the album, such as “In the Plug” and “Jumpman.” These songs have a hardcore hip-hop beat in the background. Digital Dash starts off with Future rapping for a couple of verses then finishes with Drake a verse where he’s rapping about becoming famous and how he’s the hottest rapper in the game right now. “Jumpman” is arguably the most catchy song on the album as Drake starts off his verse by rapping “Jumpman, Jumpman, Jumpman, that boy up to something whooo!” That’s a verse you will hear in bars and concerts all over the place. Some other notable songs on this album are “Diamonds Dancing” and “Change Locations.” Both of these songs are more of a rhythm and blues at a slower pace.
The catchy part of “Diamonds Dancing” is the chorus where Drake and Future sing, “Diamond, diamond, diamond, diamonds on me dancing” together. This makes sense because the album art of this album has silver diamonds on it. The song ends with Drake singing about a girl he hasn’t heard from in a while and how she’s ungrateful. Could this be about Nicki Minaj? Probably not, but something to consider since they used to be very close until she started dating Meek Mill. “Change Locations” also has a very catchy hook where Drake repeats “Me and my friends, we got money to spend,” basically reiterating they can buy whatever they want and have money to blow. The album ends with two songs called “Jersey” and “30 Freestyle.” “Jersey” is only a Future song, and he’s rapping about loving life and doing what he wants with verses like, “You do what you want once you poppin.’” This is a typical Future song that is very catchy and also rapping about women and how he became obsessed with the drug codeine ever since he became rich. The album ends with the “30 for 30 freestyle,” which is only a Drake song. This songs beat was produced by Drake’s producer Noah “40” Shebib. Probably the most well-done song on the album, Drake freestyles over a breathtaking piano beat. Drake does his typical venting in this song where he is tired of fake friends and also addresses the Meek Mill beef over the summer, saying, “And your absence is very concerning, it’s like you went on vacation with no plan of returning.” Overall, I have to say that Drake and Future did a great job in creating this album. The mix of these two different artists really meshed well together. Some of the songs I definitely recommend worth listening to are “Diamonds Dancing,” “Jumpman,” and “30 for 30 freestyle.”
Ryan Colon is a fifth-year student majoring in communications and minoring in journalism. He can be reached at RC759426@wcupa.edu.