Drake kicks off his career-spanning It’s All a Blur tour like a prize fighter. Flanked by two beefy security guards, he enters from halfway up the arena, sauntering past screaming fans before walking onto the stage and sitting next to an unnerving, younger Drake lookalike. The doppelgänger (who I’m calling Frake from here on out) hits a bong then hands over a notebook to present-day Drake, who begins rapping the first verse of 2011’s “Look What You’ve Done,†detailing an argument he had with his mother the night before Lil Wayne flew him out to sign with Cash Money. It’s a direct call back to when Drake left his breakout role on Degrassi in an attempt to take music seriously. The stakes were high — he was the primary breadwinner of his household at the time — but his attachment to rap was pure, driven as much by his desire to help his family as it was by being the best. That fresh-faced hunger is represented through Frake, who’s all smiles and enthusiastic head nods while older Drake raps of recording So Far Gone and earning enough money to send his mom to Rome like it’s a bedtime story.
The temporal mismatch of the Canadian superstar reminiscing with a younger version of himself — or his real-life mother, who subbed in for Frake during Tuesday’s Madison Square Garden set — is a double-edged sword. Drake is looking back on a tumultuous time from a place of comfort. And starting the show by retelling an underdog tale after entering the arena like Floyd Mayweather highlights the distance he’s traveled from the desire that once propelled him. Drake in 2023 is far from the same figure he was in 2009 — he’s become complacent, set in his position as a virtually bulletproof pop culture institution. But to indulge in the lavish fantasy world Drake inhabits is to valorize the history and come up that preceded it. It requires recognizing every hater, ex-girlfriend, and fellow artist as a stepping stone for his eventual makeover into a rap giant. “Marvin’s Room†and “Started From the Bottom,†both of which pop up early in the set, are crucial to understanding how Drake can turn any situation, whether it’s horny drunk dialing or disputing claims that he grew up rich, into rallying cries for his status as both victim and victor.
Her Loss, the album he and 21 Savage are on tour promoting, plays this angle from the opposite end. All 16 tracks pull from Drake’s deep bag of tricks — petty fuckboy come-ons, region-hopping flow changeups, the seemingly endless sea of relationships bound to his money and status — in ways that may be fun to rap along to in a room full of strangers but aren’t particularly fresh or timely (save for when Drake talks about the kind of paranoia that comes with having an alleged net worth of a quarter of a billion dollars). Considering the lukewarm response to his first 2023 release, the fun but scattered dance-rap excursions Honestly, Nevermind and Her Loss, and its accompanying road trip feels as if he’s resigned himself to making and embracing the old Instagram caption rap that made him famous.
The tour’s throwback-heavy first half puts this into perspective. Early tracks linger on times when the only concern on Drake’s mind was who he’d be sharing his bed with that night. Most of the song choices — from the wistful romance of “Say Something†and “Can I†to the shoulder-brushing confidence of “The Motto,†“Headlines,†and “Energy†— highlight a Drake who was charting singles but had yet to reach the height of his celebrity. These songs lay out the blueprint for the contemporary hits that fill out the back half of the set, including “God’s Plan,†“Nice for What,†and “Laugh Now Cry Later.†Drake’s brand of market-tested, function-ready hitmaking is well-practiced, and hearing that strategy feed into itself live makes for a captivating experience with a crowd that knows all the words. But it can also be disorienting. The pacing seems to take the It’s All a Blur moniker literally with most songs not lasting longer than a verse and a hook, like a setlist being chosen by an overeager Drake fan skipping through tracks on a party playlist.
Later, the tour’s production design gets in on the nostalgia act with balloons and other props that call back to specific Drake songs in both funny and unnerving ways. A giant bride mannequin — seemingly the spirit of a past relationship that haunted him — bounces around the stage while Drake performs “Jaded,†while a huge balloon of an anime-style bikini-clad woman joins him for “Way 2 Sexy.†During Frake’s second appearance — tucked into an onstage bed as he flips through TV channels playing the intros of Family Matters, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Degrassi — an inflated Peter Pan floats by while Kathryn Beaumont’s rendition of “Your Mother and Mine†from the 1953 animated film plays over the speakers. It feels like a blatant nod to the constant critiques of Drake never growing up, which dovetails with his decision to plant a Degrassi flag within the pantheon of old Black sitcoms — a not-so-sly acknowledgment that his own legacy has always started with Jimmy Brooks.
Drake is now 36 years old with 17 years in the music industry, nearly a dozen Billboard chart-topping hits, and more put-on accents and flows than a rapping AI. But he’s at a strange crossroads: too relevant and restless to be a legacy act but so far removed from the ain’t-shit antics that have defined his music that he ought to be considering what the next phase of his career looks like. The blend of earnest history and gaudy spectacle — the tour has already featured a guest appearance by J.Cole, a mid-set walk-on from Stephen Curry, and a giant drone-powered sperm balloon whizzing above the stage — is more than expected from a rapper who’s spent years trafficking in both. But that also leaves Drake jogging comfortably in place — in his live performances and his albums and interviews. He’s become notorious for letting his music do the talking, yet Honestly, Nevermind and Her Loss offer little insight into Drake outside of his love-hate relationship with fame. Nor do his recent sitdowns with fellow rapper Lil Yachty, Barstool Sports’ Caleb Pressley, and deadpan TikTok star Bobbi Althoff, which are basically comedy skits masquerading as journalism (and the closest thing he’s done to press since his raw 2019 chat with Rap Radar). Drake has turned his multipronged approach and mysterious underpinnings into a template for one of the most profitable and influential careers in rap history — but the kind where you still fashion yourself as a boxer entering the ring years after you actually stopped fighting. In Drake’s universe, if it ain’t broke, keep flexing.