“What Did I Miss?” is the first salvo in the rollout of Drizzy’s ninth studio album. Will it be enough to get him back to #1?
Don’t look now, but Drake is No. 1 on Apple Music’s Songs Chart. The unexpectedly most divisive figure in rap has very calmly, very assuredly, started his return to the top, months after being dragged through the mud and being called a pedophile during the Super Bowl halftime show. Drake’s triumphant return, titled “What Did I Miss?,” debuted a week ago during a livestream on YouTube called “ICEMAN EPISODE 1.”
In the clip, Drake drives an ice truck as a roving billboard for his upcoming album. Later, while Drake is eating in a break room, an “exclusive announcement” comes across the grainy TV he’s watching. Said announcement is the premiere of “What Did I Miss?,” and the accompanying clip features Drizzy spitting over a massive, triumphant beat that sounds like Just Blaze, if he became obsessed with 2020s Atlanta trap drums.
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In another part of the video clip, Drake is poolside, wearing all black, and accompanied by a large amount of guns. Like, a lot of guns. A bevy of semi-automatic weapons, just lying there on the ground. He asks: “How can some people I love hang around p*****s who try me?” And that seems to be what Drake is after with this latest era. He seems less interested in the ins and outs of his battle with Kendrick than in examining his own circle and expressing disgust over the friends and associates who migrated westward towards K.Dot’s camp.
Verses two and three find Drake spitting while driving his ice truck, rolling through Toronto, and eventually greeting fans who surround the vehicle and recognize its extremely famous wheelman. Drake has made an entire career out of amplifying slights, turning disses real and imagined into fuel. He’s not unlike many superstar athletes in this way. Sometimes the motivation needs to be manufactured. This time around, though, Drizzy had no need to cook up something that wasn’t there.
His battle with Kendrick marked the first time in his career that he was truly reviled and defeated — made to feel like a foreigner in his own city. During the bridge, Drake raps: “Askin’ me, ‘How did it feel?’ Can’t say it didn’t surprise me/ Last time I looked to my right, you n****s was standing beside me.” When he spits, “‘How did it feel?,’” I quickly thought he was referencing the beef, the general concept of the battle. But it’s extremely telling that Drake is now less focused on the insults he suffered via Kendrick than the way he was abandoned by people he thought were close to him.
Drake has always obsessed over relationships, so it makes sense he continues that trend in this new era. Even when he does bring up Kendrick and his “Pop Out” concert, it’s in the context of who attended it. As if he’s more upset by the defectors than the person they defected towards. He raps: “I saw bro went to Pop Out with them, but been d**k riding gang since ‘Headlines.’” More than suffering from a bruised ego, Drake seems genuinely hurt by those who left at the first sign of trouble.
All these lead to a simple question: What’s next for Drake? He’s still involved in a lawsuit with his own label over the “Not Like Us” kerfuffle. Is he really over the beef? Or are these frustrations with fake friends indicative of something bigger on the horizon? Regardless, “What Did I Miss?” makes one thing abundantly clear. Even when he’s at his lowest, Drake is still capable of creating and sustaining a culture-capturing moment. Whether that’s enough to heal his wounds remains to be seen.
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