Could Drake have possibly triangulated the moods and sensibilities of ICEMAN, HABIBTI, and MAID OF HONOUR? It’s not a stretch to imagine the Canadian rapper’s reclamatory instincts leading him to release the most colossal and self-indulgent album of his career, but the much-anticipated ICEMAN was never going to be that album. It’s both the main event and the most middling of Drake’s trio of comeback releases, the one where he incessantly addresses the fallout from his 2024 feud with Kendrick Lamar, piling up targets in every direction. Though I have to give myself some grace by not delving into all three albums track-by-track, I find myself agreeing with the consensus that HABIBTI and MAID OF HONOUR are clearly better records – not just because they are more consistently interesting forays into moody R&B and party-starting club-rap, respectively, but because Drake actually lets himself loose, while ICEMAN is about how much he wants to be set free. It’s woeful and delusory, but there are moments where the ice-cold breeze turns pleasant.
1. Make Them Cry
The opening track reintroduces Drake as a man out of his depth continually forced to dig deeper, fielding complaints before his album has even been completed, driving himself paranoid at every chance. On ‘Make Them Cry’, he’s focused on setting up the appropriate framing for his comeback but finds himself too burdened by intrusive thoughts, unable to take even his “very attractive” therapist seriously, let alone the strategic advice of every random person. If he spent more of ICEMAN in this meandering, conflicted, vulnerable mindset, it might have been a more interesting album.
2. Dust
Drake declares himself “a BTC crypto big-timer” and “a corporate-America hit survivor” over a surly trap beat, reminding anyone too charmed by his big-hearted introspection that he’s “a fucked-up guy.” Who knew?
3. Whisper My Name
Drake isn’t just throwing shots here; he makes you lean into the twists and turns of his flow, no matter how petty the subject matter gets. When the bass is boosted on the second verse, he makes good on it by adding a touch of hilarity to his similes. It’s a fun taunt, even if it doesn’t leave a lasting impression.
4. Janice STFU
Unlike a track like MAID OF HONOUR’s ‘Cheetah Print’, Drake doesn’t chase a hit by cheaply interpolating another song – instead, he flips Lykke Li’s ‘I Follow You’ in a curious way that underlines this track’s overall infectious, unpredictable energy. His grievances may seem self-punishing more than anything, but he’s got an ear for success even when he can’t bother to move on.
5. Ran to Atlanta [feat. Future and Molly Santana]
Were the fans right to suggest he bring some “big features” to the album? Future and Molly Santana are welcome guests on ‘Ran to Atlanta’, whose slew of producers overstuffs the song with ideas that fail to keep up the momentum.
6. Shabang
Drake finally loosens up on ‘Shabang’, coasting on vibrant, club-ready production that feels like a mix of ICEMAN’s companion albums, a fusion that would have benefited the record as a whole. He doesn’t even need Quavo to offer more than just some adlibs. With that laidback attitude, Drake’s punchlines hit even when the facts are up for debate.
7. Make Them Pay
Drake feeds the rumors that his trio of albums was made to fulfill the obligations of his latest record deal by circling on the hook, “I just wanna be free.” His disses become a little more specific, calling out Rick Ross and DJ Khaled, but the so-called real talk spirals into an argument about streams, which flattens the whole thing.
8. Burning Bridges
Most of the beat switches on ICEMAN feel like sighing off to the next idea, but the one on ‘Burning Bridges’ is actively frustrating, stifling the dreamy intro for a vacuous second part. Drake is obviously feeling lost throughout ICEMAN; for a moment there, it sounded like he’s embracing it.
9. National Treasures
Drake will lock into his most scathing flow on the record only to land on the line, “Ironic ’cause the ICEMAN was a nice man, now I’m hot and cold.” The rapper’s survival/business tactics too often come off as, or at least end in, self-sabotage, yet ‘National Treasures’ effectively immerses us in his mindset so that its stuckness almost makes sense.
10. B’s on the Table [feat. 21 Savage]
From the beat all the way down to Drake’s verses, ‘B’s on the Tables’ is senselessly pompous. “I’m fighting the man, not suing the rapper/ You boys is not listening,” he spits, reframing his vitriol in the most unconvincing way possible. A 21 Savage verse couldn’t have salvaged it, but the fact that he only delivers the hook says something about the extent of Drake’s self-importance.
11. What Did I Miss?
It shouldn’t be surprising that ICEMAN’s worst songs serve as the album’s centerpieces, and ‘What Did I Miss’ isn’t much better than its predecessor. Drake plays his own cheerleader, and the boisterous production wants to place him in a stadium while he’s stuck processing the same old news. Feigning triumph won’t cure the well of confusion.
12. Plot Twist
Darken that trap beat all you want, Drake’s still having more fun on ‘Plot Twist’ than most of the record, and he usually sounds better when he’s in that mode. It may not be the most inspired moment in Drake’s triptych, but it climbs the ranks simply by being one of the least deflating.
13. 2 Hard 4 the Radio
It’s ironic that Drizzy raps about being “too hard for the radio” on one of the breeziest cuts on ICEMAN, second only to ‘Shabang’. When it suddenly draws a cloud over its radiant, Mac Dre-inspired formula, it’s slyly ominous in ways that he struggles to pull off elsewhere.
14. Make Them Remember
What did you expect out of the longest track of Drake’s new trilogy except for him to double down? ‘Make Them Remember’ is too much too late: “What, y’all thought I was done?” he raps at one point. We’ve got plenty of ways to go, still.
15. Little Birdie
Whether or not you’re partial to ‘Little Birdie’ depends on whether you can stomach Drake’s chipmunk vocals, but it’s refreshing to hear him slip into woozy, low-stakes territory after a whole bunch of theatrics.
16. Don’t Worry
This is the kind of track that most critics wouldn’t bother mentioning, and with more than two hours of material to wrestle with, I wouldn’t blame them. ‘Don’t Worry’ doesn’t further any grander narrative, but it’s an unusually intimate glimpse of how Drake’s aloneness haunts him down: “’Preciate you reachin’ out, don’t be too concerned about me,” he tells a girl in a club that starts speaking Farsi. He doesn’t sound unbothered, for once, just sort of adrift, and getting the feeling across.
17. Firm Friends
Though Drake declares that he and Conductor Williams “got more fuckin’ chemistry than MIT,” the production here sounds more wilted than ghostly. If he’s going to complain about the same injustices, shouldn’t there at least be a sense of continuity to his stream-of-consciousness? On ‘Firm Friends’ it becomes nauseating, and not just because it would fall just as flat anywhere else on the record.
18. Make Them Know
“What happened to Drake from 2009/ When all of the moments was intimate?/ What happened to Drake with the innocence?/ I don’t think we’ll be seein’ him again,” Drake raps on the final track, which should elicit at least some amount of nostalgia, if not sympathy, for that lost era. As anticipated and successful as ICEMAN was bound to be, it is the most redundant of his latest stream of records: instead of anchoring an hour’s worth of morose music around these ‘Make Them’ tracks, he could’ve put them out there as standalone treatises, then slotted the best of the remaining songs – by which I mean the ones that put their weight behind the actual music, like HABIBTI and MAID OF HONOUR mostly do – onto those albums, making them, too, feel more substantial. That may not have set him free, but it would have made the onslaught of new Drake music a lot more enjoyable.
