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After two years, Drake fans can finally rejoice: the struggling rapper has released his long-awaited album “Iceman” – with guest appearances from Shane Gillis and DJ Akademiks.
At the end of the “Iceman” livestream, Drake pulled out three hard drives and the text appeared on the screen: “I made this so that I could make this.” Another fade-in revealed the titles of two more surprise albums: “Habibti” and “Maid Of Honor”. All three LPs were released simultaneously on Friday.
The three albums in rapid succession come with enormous expectations – they are Drake’s first solo albums after his beef with Kendrick Lamar in 2024, whose diss track “Not Like Us” won multiple Grammys and permanently damaged the chart-topper’s public image.
A look behind the scenes
After years of speculation, the album now gives fans a glimpse into how Drake experienced the highly publicized exchange. The production comes from long-time collaborator Noah “40” Shebib as well as Overkst, OK and other names. Future and newcomer Mollysantana are also represented. Previous episodes of Drake’s live stream featured the songs “What Did I Miss?” and “National Treasure” – both can now be found on the album.
Drake doesn’t take kindly to Lamar and the shocking diss track “Not Like Us,” which called Drake a “certified pedophile.” The understandably upset rapper takes multiple opportunities to chip away at Kendrick’s public image, with lines like “White kids listen to you cuz they feelin’ some guilt,” as well as lines apparently claiming that 100 million streams for Lamar are off the count. This fits into his ongoing allegations that UMG artificially inflated the song’s popularity with fraudulent bot streams.
Other lines like “Your baby momma ain’t even post a single, damn, where she at?” address allegations that Drake had already made in his 2024 diss track series. He also appears to claim that members of Kendrick’s team tried to settle the matter: “You saw my brother, you was tryna fix it, now you drop your album and you back dissing,” Drake raps.
Long shadow of beef
“Iceman” arrives in the long shadow of the industry-wide beef that has erupted with Metro Boomin and Future’s “We Don’t Trust You” as well as the single “Like That” feat. Lamar began.
