Final weekend, Drake and 21 Savage introduced their joint venture Her Loss, set to be launched this Friday. The title hints that the album may lean extra into Drake’s lovelorn wheelhouse than 21 Savage’s steely menace, and finds two of the rap world’s largest artists increasing their musical synergy for a full-length launch.
“Jimmy Cooks,” from Drake’s Truthfully, Nevermind, “Knife Discuss” from Licensed Lover Boy, and “Sneakin” are three well-regarded tracks in Drake’s canon, whereas “Mr Proper Now” is a extra polarizing providing from 21 and Metro-Boomin’s Savage Mode II venture. 21 has in contrast the 2 to a modern-day “Kobe-Shaq” pairing on the mic, even after he beforehand informed Akademiks that “if I wasn’t a rapper, I don’t really feel like I nonetheless would take heed to Drake, for actual.”
Stil, “Drake only a genuine-ass good-hearted particular person,” Savage has mentioned in regards to the Toronto artist. “‘He did numerous shit he didn’t need to do. He do numerous shit for up-and-coming rappers, interval. I don’t assume he get his respect for that. Each fuckin’ 12 months, he pull a brand new artist up. Ain’t no different artist on his stage do this shit.”
The 2 share October birthdays and collectively have extra hits than misses. In addition they aren’t strangers to collaborating with different artists on double albums. Drake launched What A Time To Be Alive with Future in 2015, his trap-driven victory lap after releasing If You’re Studying This It’s Too Late and besting Meek Mill of their extremely publicized beef earlier that 12 months. Drake is such a flexible, prolific artist that he’s stoked a powerful inventive bond with a variety of MCs through the years. Rumors of Drake-Rick Ross and Drake-LIl Wayne tasks have festered at completely different instances of his profession based mostly on their bevy of basic collaborations. However Her Loss is his official WATTBA collab album followup.
21 Savage dropped With out Warning with Offset and Metro-Boomin in 2017, a 10-track ATL affair the place the 2 MCs have been equally gruff and braggadocious over murky Metro manufacturing. 21 Savage and Metro-Boomin’s Savage Mode tasks have additionally been billed as collaboration tasks, although they’re moreso rapper-producer albums. Her Loss is Drake and 21’s first collaboration venture in seven and 5 years, respectively, a time interval during which 21 Savage has reached the cusp of rap superstardom, whereas Drake’s maintain on pop music has remained agency, whilst albums like 2018’s Scorpion, 2020’s Darkish Lane Demo Tapes, and 2021’s Licensed Lover Boy have detractors who’ve deemed them fan service tasks due to their tendency to supply every sect of Drake’s viewers two to 3 songs: there’s R&B Drake, “mob boss” Drake, Afrobeats Drake, and reflective “5PM” Drake in equal proportion. That’s why his foray into dance music Truthfully, Nevermind, from earlier this 12 months, was refreshing, and why this follow-up is poised to be one other strategic success.
Greater than a financially-driven partnership, nevertheless, Drake and 21 share a bond solid in friendship. According to 21’s manager Meezy, they’ve by no means needed to talk about cash over any collaborations. Throughout a 2022 Clubhouse session, Meezy revealed that 21 not often does paperwork with artists he sparks real friendship with. “Plenty of the artists, they’re low-key friends,” Meezy mentioned. “So shit simply be taking place naturally. A nigga is perhaps within the studio, anyone ask, ‘Ay, are you able to do that music?’ And it occurs, as a result of niggas fuck with one another, so that you ain’t gonna discuss cash.” Now that the 2 established stars are set to commemorate their inventive chemistry in grand trend, we put collectively a short snippet of Drake and 21 Savage’s most memorable moments.
“Sneakin”
In 2016, Drake and 21 Savage launched their first collaboration, every week after 21’s birthday. That night time, Drake dropped “Sneakin” alongside “Pretend Love” and “Two Birds, One Stone.” The 21-assisted “Sneakin” feels like a fur-clad Drake rapping on the peak of his post-Meek Mill reverie. Over manufacturing courtesy of London On The Observe, Drake raps to a thriller foe: “’bout to take over your metropolis and you may’t stand it / My accountant say you sinking just like the Titanic.” His album Views was on its option to changing into the most-streamed file (based mostly on album-equivalent items) of the 12 months, so he may’ve been speaking to anybody from his industrial steeple. However he wasn’t referring to 21, who follows off Drake’s boasts along with his personal verse, the place he glides over London’s 808s and lets listeners know, “We those poppin’, We those shoppin’ / We those droppin’, N—-s we those.” In “Sneakin’s” Gab3-directed visible, the 2 look each little bit of “those” whereas partying in a grotto with frolicking girls.
“Knife Discuss” and “Mr Proper Now”
a duo trusts one another once they begin making an attempt to alternate one another’s roles. On “Mr. Proper Now,” from 21 Savage and Metro Boomin’s Savage Mode II venture, 21 determined to take over hook duties from Drake, who has the longest verse on the music. 21 has likened his work with Drake to Shaq and Kobe, although it might be a complicated resolution if Shaq had determined to carry the ball up and go to Kobe within the put up for a complete sport. The 2 repeated the dynamic on “Knife Discuss,” which is a decidedly grim monitor for a venture deemed Licensed Lover Boy. After a brief Undertaking Pat verse, 21 begins the music off, buying and selling verses with Drake, and as soon as once more taking over the hook, sounding extra at residence as he lets the listener know, that “Gang shit, that’s all I’m on.”
“Jimmy Cooks”
21 Savage was the one function on Drake’s in any other case dance-focused album, Truthfully Nevermind, and he confirmed up on essentially the most overtly rap-leaning monitor on the venture. Drake begins “Jimmy Cooks” in sometimes braggadocios type, rapping over an idyllic pattern earlier than, impressed by the earlier dance compositions, issues take an abrupt shift, and the 2 go the baton on a single line. “If I let my nigga 21 inform it, you a pussyyyy,” Drake raps. 21 hangs on to the final phrase, then jolts the album along with his prolonged verse, threatening to “smack the bottom of his head like he Bart” and affirming, “I received mad love for the boy, yeah, that’s my twizzin.” The Mahfuz Sultan-directed video reveals the 2 in entrance of an enormous inexperienced display screen displaying completely different pictures, nevertheless it stops in the course of Drake’s verse to announce Her Loss, then reveals the 2 leisurely speaking for the remainder of the video. Who is aware of what they have been discussing that took priority over the remainder of the music, however It’s their world, we’re simply residing in it.
Birthday Ferraris
The “Jimmy Cooks” video dropped on 21 Savage’s thirtieth birthday, however that isn’t the primary time the 2 made headlines on 21’s earthstrong. In 2016, Drake referred to as the Atlanta rapper “a younger October king with all of the juice proper now,” then put his cash the place his ideas have been by renting 21 a Ferrari to cruise round LA. When 21 first posted an image of him with the automobile and captioned it “bday present from @champagnpapi,” many assumed that Drake had outright bought the automobile. However 21 later clarified that it was only a rental. “Nah, he ain’t purchase me no automobile … He did some actual shit,” 21 Savage informed radio station Actual 92.3. “We was simply speaking, and I used to be like ‘Man, I need a Ferrari or some shit.’ So, he simply received me one for the entire time I used to be in L.A. for my birthday. However I fell in love with the automobile, so I simply went and purchased one. He appeared out.” He additionally informed GQ that it was the one present he received that 12 months. And now the 2 are set to come back collectively and provides the rap world a present throughout each of their start month.
