Her Loss - Drake & 21 Savage: Review
Drake & 21 Savage
are a pair of rap music's most popular and enigmatic voices. Drake is coming off a shift into hip-house on his dance record Honestly, Nevermind earlier this year which was met with mostly critical shrugs. 21 Savage on the other hand was last heard from in full-length form in 2020 when he dropped the highly anticipated Savage Mode II with Metro Boomin' which had slightly more critical acclaim to its name but was still seen as a bit of a let-down. Her Loss was surprise announced just a few weeks ago and dropped with no singles.
Review by Lav:
Boy, everyone is gonna be talking about this one. Even when the record was barely out there were already hot takes flying about this being the best or worst thing either artist had done in years. As I so often try and do, I took a few days to digest this record with repeat listens and come out with some clarity and as you'd expect, the reality is somewhere between the hot takes. Her Loss is flat-out too long at 16 tracks and one hour with some painfully obvious cuts in the mix. But in contrast, it features some of the biggest highlights either artist has been a part of in years.
Let's get right to those highlights because the record doesn't waste any time. A high-profile collaborative tape like this can ride quite a bit on the success of the artists and their achievements and the opening track Rich Flex does that perfectly. It has all the intoxicating grandiosity that a high-profile collab like this should and it even runs into the next track Major Distribution. It's a pretty cutthroat track the kind that 21 Savage absolutely eats up and he once again steals the show over this stark banger of a beat.
The biggest highlight on the record's first half is Spin Bout U a song I could definitely see some people having issues with but one that I absolutely love. It's a great combination of 21 Savage's charming objectifying lust with a hook that calls back to the best songs on Honestly, Nevermind. The Instagram bars are hilarious and the beat is totally infectious I just can't get enough of this song. On the second half of the record, we have the album's lone feature Travis Scott on Pussy & Millions. It's a smooth hip-hop and R&B fusion that isn't going to rewrite the book on anything but Travis' style goes perfectly with Drake and 21's performances here.
Broke Boys is another straightforward banger that's loaded with catchy refrains and a great beat switch. The only reason I can't completely endorse the song is that Drake says fuck Adidas on the track and that doesn't fly with me, I have a personal beef with that line. Later on the record, there's More M's which relies on how genuinely attractive 21 Savage is and I fall for it head over heels. It's charming, catchy, funny, and hard-hitting and I just love everything about it.
There are some more highlights from the songs on the record that features just one of either Drake or 21, but as a bunch, they also work to expose the massive inconsistencies on the record. Let's start with the best one 3AM On Glenwood the lone song on the record to feature just 21 Savage. He takes the opportunity to get pretty serious and it's a great display of his abilities as a storyteller. His framing of the events in his past that inform his escapist behavior and continued dark thoughts is wonderful and aside from a misplaced seamen bar in the mix, it's a great song. Drake has his own big solo highlight too on Middle Of The Ocean which has a great beat switch of its own and feels like the most authentic confessionary moment for Drake in the tracklist. While the 6-minute runtime may be a bit indulgent if that's what it took for us to get the "giving me head and you still not topping me" bar then honestly it was worth it.
The rest of the Drake solo tracks do start to show how the record can unravel though. BackOutsideBoyz does have a sing-songyness to it that I like with the swelling beat and bouncing between melodies and flows but I do with the refrains were a little catchier as I can't really see myself ever wanting to revisit this track specifically. Drake handles the closing track I Guess It's Fuck Me and takes his turn to get serious but it's so obvious when put back to back with 3AM just how little Drake has to work through compared to 21. The song isn't bad it just never matches the intensity of the track that comes literally right before it in the tracklist and I'm not sure why it couldn't have been moved literally anywhere else on the record to help increase its impact. Finally, there's Jumbotron Shit Poppin one of the worst songs on the record where Drake doesn't really say or do anything. Half the song is taken up by transitions and most of the refrains are talk-singing like this is the most obvious cut in the tracklist.
Like many a bloated Drake project in recent years, there are some misses in the mix. The less interesting ones are just on the forgettable side like Privileged Rappers which is most notable for some eyebrow-raising bars about women, something neither of these artists are strangers to. Treacherous Twins starts off okay but has a beat switch into a way more boring second half that really confuses me.
Speaking of confusing me Circo Loco has pretty decent performances from both Drake and 21 which is a shame because they're wasted on an extremely lazy sample of Daft Punk's One More Time. It's so shoddily done I'm just not sure what the point of using such a beloved song was if you weren't going to take it seriously and actually try to do the track justice.
Another issue I have that makes the tracklist and length feel even worse is that some of the worst songs on the record are some of its longest. On BS has a hook that just sucks out every bit of momentum and really makes you realize how boring the beat is. It's a bad sign that the comedic relief spoken outro to the song is much more compelling than the actual song itself. The record's longest song Hours In Silence might be its worst with a full 6 minutes plopped in the middle of the record and almost nothing to show for it. The problems go from 21's singing which he doesn't quite pull off to Drake' repeated "turn my bitch up" refrain which is absolutely exhausting. I'm really just left confused by the indulgence of this track.
Is Her Loss a good album? Despite all of its flaws I honestly think so. It's definitely not a great album and like nearly every Drake project over the last 5+ years the insistence on packing the tracklist will probably result in great streaming numbers, but it's a bad artistic choice for the record. Thankfully though I think there are genuine highlights on here, moments that reach higher than almost anything on Honestly, Nevermind and Certified Lover Boy, two albums that were over-hated in the first place. This is just two artists near the top of their commercial game leaning into the things they do well and not overcomplicating things, with mostly good results. 6.5/10
