Drake returns to his style of music that first put him on the mainstream circuit with releases like Take Care and Nothing Was the Same. And by that I mean Views is a sharp turn from the rapper Drake we find on If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and instead is a majority of singing Drake reminiscing about his ex-girlfriends and Toronto, the city he is from. In fact, much of the production, which is handled by Drake’s in-house producer “40,” blends the sounds of his earlier albums and creates for a melancholy and dark sounding album. Just imagine the overcast weather on the album cover in the form of a beat or melody.

Drake coos and sings his way into the hearts of his fans once more on this album, and I really can’t complain; the majority of the album is quite enjoyable. Songs like Feel No Ways, Redemption, and Fire & Desire all highlight the singing nature of Drizzy on the album as he attempts to get the audience “into their feelings.” Even some of the songs which are carried by Drake’s rapping like Weston Road Flows, U With Me?, and Child’s Play are again deeper tracks that are supposed to hold more meaning than just a song that you can throw on at a club or party. Of course, Views has plenty of songs like that as well like the Future assisted track Grammy’s or a personal favorite Controlla. All in all, the album strikes a nice balance between rapping and singing, but overall weighs in the favor of deeper more emotional themes in the songs no matter how Drake delivers his lyrics.

And that is where I find issue with this album, and how it relates to Lemonade. The fault in Views isn’t its quality, its questionable 20-song length, or the lack of rapping. It is the lack of genuine artistry and craft that detracts from the emotional nature of the music that Drake creates. A week and a half following the release of the album 8 tracks leaked on SoundCloud, a digital music streaming application, from Drake’s OVO label mate PartyNextDoor. Every single one of these songs is a reference track to a Drake song that can either be found on If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late or Views. On top of this, PartyNextDoor’s original version of Drake and Rihanna’s hit Work leaked the same day as well. Now, this is all following the fiasco that was the Meek Mill vs. Drake feud sparked by Meek’s allegations that Drake used rap artist Quentin Miller as his ghost writer. At the time no one would give credit to Meek even after 3 Quentin reference tracks were leaked to the public.

With over 851,000 copies sold and over 250 million streams in its first week Views is absolutely murdering the charts and Drake is reaping its benefits. But, with all of this surmounting evidence building about Drake’s lack of craft and lyricism, this success seems unwarranted and almost undeserved. The success of the album stems from the fact that Drake reaches both a female and male audience with the music, building a supposed emotional connection with the audience about past relationships. This emotional music is what drives the sales. However, if they lyrics and concepts of the songs aren’t Drake’s to claim then how true is that emotional connection and what value does his music actually hold? It for this reason that Views and Lemonade are so similar. Lemonade was a concept album put out to supposedly expose Beyoncé’s husband Jay-Z for the cheating he had done throughout their relationship. When the album released this crazy public reveal drove sales and created hype, only to die down a week later when the couple revealed it was simply a marketing ploy.

Hence, neither album is genuine, neither album has any true substance for the audience to empathize with because the artists are creating fraudulent music that just sells records. That is the major issue here, craft and appreciation for true talent and good music is now falling away to what can sell the most units on the market. Actual rappers and talented artists like Joey Badass or the band The Internet will never see record sale numbers that even come close to Drake or Beyoncé, but anyone who listens or knows about these artists knows about the passion they put into the music they create. They are being overshadowed by quintessential pop stars in their own fields of rap and hip hop.

This is not to say that the music on Views is bad or unlistenable to, it’s an enjoyable listen. But, when Drake makes claims like he’s “TBE, the best ever,” or “top 5, top 5, top 5,” I’m going to hold those lines with a grain of salt, mostly because I highly doubt he ever wrote them. Respected and revered rappers are the ones who have witty lines, hard beats, good flow: the entire package. That package has to be self made it has to be all from the rapper who is laying down bars, it can't be made by a team behind that artist. It is for the sake of the genre of rap that I think it’s time for Drake to start putting writing credit on his albums and to admit to what he truly is: a pop star with a voice that is able to blend two genres together.