$ome $exy $ongs 4 U - Drake & PartyNextDoor: Review

Review by Lavender:

Drake, what to say about Drake. The Canadian rapper and singer has been one of the biggest stars in music for well over a decade. But in case you're living under a rock, you probably know that he's coming off of one of the biggest defeats of his entire career in a beef with Kendrick Lamar that just resulted in an instantly iconic Super Bowl performance. Of course, Drake doesn't fall like the rest of us. The beef spawned multiple huge hit songs for him as well and he's continued successfully touring the entire time, but he just released his first new music since the beef concluded, a Valentine's Day record in collaboration with label mate PartyNextDoor. 

If you're approaching $ome $exy $ongs 4 U hoping for a the next cultural development in Drake's arc you're going to be disappointed. Save for a few passing mentions the album largely exists outside that sphere, focusing mainly on returning to a similar kind of songwriting about rich lifestyles and relationship issues that has defined his work throughout his entire career. Though this thing is a collaboration with one of the most notorious sex-jam factories in all of music PartyNextDoor and it was marketed as a Valentine's Day tape, the album also isn't content to just serve up hot and heavy R&B. It's got a surprising amount of variety across it's bulky 73-minute tracklist. But like with MANY Drake projects before it, the inconsistencies are a huge issue. 

There are a lot more highlights on the album than you'd think, and we'll get there. But first I have to say there are NUMEROUS songs on here that don't even do anything distinct enough to be highlights or lowlights. Like a lot of Drake projects, there are several innocuous moments that slip completely into the background. There are also several outright stinkers. 

Early on in the album get that absolutely brutal one-two punch of the cringey "Crying In Chanel" and the absolutely unbearable "Spiderman Superman." Later on in the record you get "Glorious" which wrongly bets on the charisma and momentum of Ice Spice. Even though its drill raps aren't completely intolerable the sung refrains slipped in between them absolutely are. On every PartyNextDoor album, there is at least one moment where his sexuality gets so embarrassingly juvenile that a song becomes impossible to even listen to, and on this record, that moment is "OMW." And speaking of impossible to listen to, "Meet Your Padre" is the new worst example of Drake's culture-vulture tendencies to borrow musical stylings and humiliatingly change his accent to match. How is this now racist or offensive somehow?

But the frustrating thing about Drake is that every few years he writes the greatest fucking song I've ever heard. Just like I thought "Rich Baby Daddy" was unironically incredible in 2023 I can alrrady tell you that "Nokia" will be one of my favorite songs of 2025. The beat on this track is fucking irresistible to start and it's absolutely packed full from wall to wall with sharply written refrains that have drilled into my head to stay. The energy the song builds up and the momentum it maintains is genuinely special and I CANNOT stop listening to it. 

Like most Drake records there are a LOT more highlights here than many critics would have you believe. That included the opener "CN Tower" whose minimal instrumental fits perfectly with the snaps that serve as the beat in the first half. The full beat holds off until just the right moment and the way the changing lights of the tower mean different things for each verse is great. "Small Town Fame" does unfortunately have a weird vocal fry I'm not crazy about but the song itself is such a highlight that I can overlook it. Drake is doing one classic "so corny it's kind of funny again" line after another like when he tells his girl to exfoliate her man because he's a scrub. The mix would have to be a LOT worse to make me hate this song. 

"Gimme A Hug" is another song that a LOT of people are already gravitating towards and it's easy to see why. It's both one of the catchiest songs on the record as well as one of the hardest with a lethal beat switch and a series of refrains that'll leave you behind in a hurry if you're not keeping up with Drake's references. It even manages to circle back around into being a love song again right at the end which works great with the album's tracklist. 

PartyNextDoor is also on this album in case you forgot and his shining moments include a few tracks better than anything on his new record last year. "Deeper" reminds me of my favorite PND songs from an era that's a full decade out at this point. Same thing with "Lasers" it feels like a throwback in all the best ways and I love both tracks. Though the back end of the album is more bloated in comparison to the first it also features some surprisingly heartfelt moments. "Die Trying" is a slinky indie cut built around an acoustic guitar lick with Yebba on board. It's the kind of thing I would normally roll my eyes at on a Drake album and yet I think this one actually works really well. Same thing with "Greedy" the dramatic closing track that serves up soul-bearing final moments where Drake and PND actually come together for one of the only times on the album. 

So yeah, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U is the DEFINITION of a mixed bag. I'm not sure it succeeds at being either a collaborative album or a Valentine's album, as its best moments see it wandering far away from either of those ambitions. But the fact that it has so many of those great moments is what always made it a fun re-listen despite its flaws. Once again it feels like the same dance with Drake. In a bloated hour plus of music he manages to show off some of his very best and one or two of his very worst ideas, but on $exy $ongs the bright spots manage to win out and his decision to largely ignore the events of the past year pays off. 6/10

For more rap check out my review of Lil Baby's WHAM