Drake lost the beef and embraced the manosphere. Is it too late for him to win back his audience?

"Despite his A-list pop star status, there's been a noticeable scrappiness to Drake's rollout for his ninth album, Iceman. Last month, the rapper iced out his favorite court-side seats at the Toronto Raptors' arena, with faux icicles dangling from the chairs. He followed that up with a more brazen stunt: a huge block of ice in downtown Toronto for the public to chip at until it thawed, revealing the album date."

"In early May, he debuted a quirky episodic series on YouTube featuring skits in an ice manufacturing plant and the rapper driving an Iceman-branded truck around Toronto. The mood seemed cheeky and defiant: good news for anyone who missed the memester of his 2016 viral hit Hotline Bling."

"While he is still the highest streamed rapper artist in the world, he has been attacked by hip-hop. Two years ago, Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar and Drake engaged in a battle that no one came out of unscathed. There were accusations of intimate partner violence towards Lamar, a song about a possible daughter that Drake has hid, and Lamar's Grammy-winning death blow Not Like Us about Drake being a hip-hop colonizer who chases after young women."

"Consensus has said that he lost the beef between him and Lamar, and the consensus is right, but the backlash against Drake was already starting to formulate before Lamar issued the first warning shot in 2024 diss track Like That. Fans that once loved Drake for his undeniable hooks and sensual R&B sensibilities jumped to Lamar's side as Drake's music began to feel more lonely and bitter, while Lamar showed himself to be surprisingly nimble during the beef."

Drake’s ninth album, Iceman, is promoted through scrappy, cheeky ice-related events in Toronto. He iced out court-side seats at the Toronto Raptors arena with faux icicles, then placed a large block of ice in downtown Toronto for the public to chip until it thawed and revealed the album date. He also released an episodic YouTube series with skits in an ice manufacturing plant and Drake driving an Iceman-branded truck around the city. The rollout arrives amid complicated backlash after his 2023 album For All the Dogs. Despite remaining the most streamed rapper globally, he faced attacks in hip-hop following a damaging Kendrick Lamar feud, accusations involving intimate partner violence, and Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us. Fans increasingly shifted toward Lamar as Drake’s music felt lonelier and more bitter.

Read at www.theguardian.com