Drake is settling some scores on his new release, For All the Dogs Scary Hours Edition. First of all, there’s the critics’ scores for his last album, For All the Dogs (53 on Metacritic, if you were wondering). “I feel no need to appease anybody,” he said in a trailer for the third release in his Scary Hours series. “I feel so confident about the body of work that I just dropped that I know I could go disappear for, whatever, six months, a year, two years.” The six songs he released were made all in the last week, he said, including the J. Cole–featuring “Evil Ways.” And he opens the first new song, “Red Button,” rapping about being “the most decorated, competition decimated” and “rarely celebrated.” Nope, no insecurity to see here!
And then there’s the scores to settle with everyone Drake disses on those six songs. “Red Button” comes out hot, digging up his beef with Ye: “Every time that Yeezy called a truce, he had my head inflated / Thinkin’ we gon’ finally peace it up and get to levitatin’ / Realize that everything premeditated.” On the next track, “Stories About My Brother,” he seems to attack Joe Budden for his dislike of For All the Dogs, rapping, “Imagine us gettin’ out validation from an ex-musician searchin’ for recognition.” (And 6ix9ine catches a stray too, when Drake raps about people who snitch and “act like the rapper named after the sex position.”) By “Wick Man,” he’s come back to his beef with Pusha T, referencing Push’s “The Story of Adidon” and group Clipse: “Man, I remember niggas was jokin’ ’bout some tick, tick / And now that rapper broke as fuck, that boy statistic / Empty clips, yeah / Empty clips.” But Drake saved the most heat of all for his ex on “You Broke My Heart,” repeating “fuck my ex” a few dozen times in that song’s bridge.
The only person Drake leaves any respect for on the project? Taylor Swift, of course. “Taylor Swift the only nigga that I ever rated / Only one could make me drop the album just a little later,” he raps, of them going toe to toe on the charts. At least the man knows how to pick his battles.
