Drake – "Started from the Bottom" (2013)

I'ma worry ‘bout me

Give a f*ck about you

Hip-hop has been the world’s dominant musical genre for years.

So I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least one overrated or underrated rapper in this year’s “29 Posts in 29 Days.” 

Yes, I know that I did write about the grossly overrated Hamilton.  But Hamilton is hip-hop “lite’ – hip-hop for white people, if you will.  So it doesn’t really count. 

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I am a fan of rap music, and know more about it than you would expect an old white guy to know.

For example, I was the only person on my millennial-dominated trivia team to know what the title of Wu-Tang Clan’s 1994 “C.R.E.A.M.” – one of their greatest rap songs ever – meant.  (Those letters stand for “Cash Rules Everything Around Me,” of course.)

But to be honest, my knowledge of rap/hip-hop is limited – I am far from being an expert.

So I turned to the NegusWhoRead website for help identifying overrated and underrated hip-hop artists, and found a post by Michael Harriot titled “The Ten Most Overrated Rappers of All Time” . . . just what I was looking for!

One of Harriott’s choices was Drake, the Canadian-born rapper who is currently the most popular hip-hop artists in the world.  

Drake

Drake has sold over 170 million records worldwide.  He has placed an astonishing 205 songs on the Billboard “Hot 100” – more than any solo artist in history – and in July 2018, he had seven songs in the Billboard top ten at the same time, which is simply mind-boggling.  (Drake had a record total of 12 top ten songs in 2018, one more than the Beatles had in 1964.)  Given the extent of his popularity, he is almost per se overrated.

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Here’s what Harriott had to say about Drake:

Drake raps light skinnededededed.

I’m not referring to this sensitive raps or his atonal crooning.  I’m talking about his voice.  When black people try to imitate how white people sound, they do Drake’s voice.  Drake’s voice is made of lukewarm herbal tea flavored with warm milk and melted snow.  It is like natural gas – colorless and odorless. . . . I know his lyrics make women ovulate and men reminisce about their ex-girlfriends, but they are just solid. . . .

I had to stop talking to a friend because he told me he cried listening to a Drake song.

I don’t have any false ideas of masculinity, but if Drake songs make you teary-eyed, you aren’t built for the struggle. 

Also, he's Canadian.

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Click here to listen to Drake’s 2013 hit, “Started from the Bottom,” which reached #6 on the Billboard “Hot 100” and #2 on the Billboard “Hot Rap Songs” charts.

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: