For All The Dogs is here, but does Drake still have something to say?

25:00Drake's For All The Dogs, and Love is Blind's messiest season yet

This morning, Canadian rap superstar Drake released his eighth studio album, For All The Dogs.

While the album dropped a few hours later than anticipated, culture critics Mastermind, Sarah-Tai Black and Marlon Palmer were nonetheless able to join Commotion host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to debrief how it stacks up against Drake's previous work, and which fans will be most satisfied with this latest offering.

Read on for highlights from today's conversation, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, where the panel also gets into Love is Blind Season 5, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: I'm so excited to do this. I have so many thoughts, but I will defer my thoughts to later. Mastermind, I'm going to start with you. What's your initial reaction to this record?

Mastermind: Well, you know any time Drake drops, it's an event. I don't know if I'm too industry and maybe I'm overthinking it, but it really does feel like everything stops when Drake announces something…. At 23 songs, the album is super long. He's not just doing one-minute records; the first three songs we've heard in the last six months are, like, five minutes long.

The one thing I always take away from an artist like Drake is how incredible his output is — how he continues to come up with stuff to rap about, to write about. [His content] is a testament to the type of artist he is, but the fact that he continues over eight albums to release music at a fairly high level is pretty, pretty damn impressive.

Elamin: Sarah-Tai, I love Drake as much as the next guy, but I don't know if I agree with Mastermind in terms of having new stuff to rap about. This man is aggrieved. This man is surly. This man is lonely. These be the themes of a Drake record. I don't think we're getting something that different here. Sarah-Tai, where you at on this record?

Sarah-Tai: Well, just to start us off contextualizing my relationship with Drake—

Elamin: Please do.

Sarah-Tai: I hate the man. I'm ready to give a TED talk. I think specifically as a biracial November Scorpio — elite, not an October Scorpio — with a white mom from Toronto, I am really positioned well to give my TED talk about Drake, which I won't. But I'm not about to let my hateration stop me from listening to a good song.

So I'm here for the folks who maybe are like, "Drake is not my bag, but maybe this song is so good that it doesn't matter," you know? I really like the Drake for the girlies. That's really my mode. Like Views, More Life, Nice for What — I can't deny. Why would I deprive myself of a girly bop?

WATCH | Official music video for 8AM In Charlotte:

Elamin: Not a lot of Drake for the girlies on this record, to be honest with you.

Sarah-Tai: Not a lot at all.

Mastermind: Well, it's called For All The Dogs.

Sarah-Tai: Yeah, and I guess I'm not a dog. I really liked Rich Baby Daddy; I think that's the song for the girlies. It's giving us dance-y pop/R&B Drake. It's giving us sample Drake, where he's working with nostalgia. It's definitely not Honestly, Nevermind. He was very much like, "I've got to get back to my roots."

Elamin: Honestly, Nevermind was the album he dropped last year. That was a dance record that a bunch of people were like, "What is this? And why did we take this turn?"

Marlon: And then they loved it six months later.

Elamin: That's true. I completely agree.

Sarah-Tai: It is what it is. Beyoncé came through and we forgot about Drake; we all know that. But for me, I think this is a return to Drake, which for many fans could be welcomed. For me, not so much.

Elamin: Noted. Marlon, Drake has dropped four full-length records since 2020. We're including the collaborative album Her Loss with 21 Savage. How does For All the Dogs hold up against all of those albums?

Marlon: I think it fits right at the top there.

Elamin: Whew, okay.

Marlon: Certified Lover Boy seemed confused. It seemed all over the place.

Mastermind: Woah.

Marlon: It was like he was in love, and then he was scorned. But I liked a lot of the bops on there — the ones that hit, hit very hard. Whereas this one, I think there's just a consistent flow of great production, great concepts, great songs. He doesn't really talk about anything different, but he knows how to repackage what he talks about in several ways, all the time. So I don't mind it. I really don't want him to talk about world politics or anything like that; I don't run to Drake for that. So everything that he's talking about is exactly what I expect him to talk about.

Mastermind: Because I've been a broadcaster for so long, I listen for songs that I think are going to hit on the radio or while people are driving, or whatever the case may be. And so for me, Certified Lover Boy is actually a really dope album…. It's like Drake drops an album, people do their thinkpieces in the first 24 hours, and then six months later they go back and they're like, "Oh, man, that album is so good." And that's actually been a very consistent trend for Drake.

Elamin: Since Views!

Mastermind: Right…. It's very rinse, repeat with Drake. He releases an album. Everybody talks; either they love it or they hate it. Six months later is the real reaction to it, and they tend to go back and say he knows what he's doing. I think that's going to be the exact same thing with this one.

Elamin: Part of what's kept Drake winning, I think, has been his ability to switch modes. He can please his day-one backpacker fans. He can please the trap rap fans. He can do pop. He can do R&B. What is the Drake that we're getting with this album from your first listen?

Mastermind: I think it's actually all three…. He's very lyrical, so the backpacker fans, if you are a fan of Drake and his rhyme schemes and how he can actually spit, this is that Drake. He's not stupid, right? Eight albums in, he knows his fanbase — and he knows what to make for that fanbase. That's it.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.