Drake’s new album: Lover boy comeback after Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us

Alex Taylor

Reporting fromLondon

"Gimme a hug, Gimme a hug!," pleads Drake on one track from his new album, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U.

After the month and year he's had, perhaps it's no surprise.

As rap battle humiliations go, the rapper's defeat by hip-hop's lyrical supremo Kendrick Lamar has become a cultural phenomenon, and saw Drake sue Universal Music Group.

Lamar's diss track, Not Like Us, a viral hit since last summer, accuses the Canadian star of inappropriate relationships with underage girls - claims Drake denies.

First the track swept up at the Grammys, with Taylor Swift and Beyoncé dancing along. Then came Lamar's Super Bowl half-time show, with a record 133.5 million people estimated to have tuned in to watch the whole stadium sing the lyrics accusing Drake of being a paedophile.

And on Friday the single finally topped the UK charts nine months after release, matching its stateside success.

But rather than lay low, Drake, the dominant chart-topper of the past 15 years, is coming out fighting with an "intriguing" strategy after being put in a "cultural chokehold", says crisis PR expert Mark Borkowski.

As Lamar grins through the bright lights of his victory lap, Drake's chosen to sidestep the beef - bar one embittered freestyle denouncing fake friends - and instead focused on repositioning himself.

Currently on tour in Australia, he's been loosening up, gently leaning into the softer image he's spent recent years trying to toughen, even performing an intimate karaoke bar set of early sultry hits.

Then on Valentine's Day, almost a week after the Super Bowl, he returned with $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, a full-length collaboration with PartyNextDoor that harks back to his R&B-tinged rise.

Full of trap-soul beats teasing romantic escapades, Borkowski calls it a "calculated retreat into the familiar, comfortable territory" of the more sensitive "certified lover boy" persona that dominated Drake's initial breakthrough albums like Thank Me Later and 2011's Take Care.

In the 2010s, Drake was the most-listened to Spotify artist, racking up more than 28 billion streams, with his most popular song, One Dance, played 1.7 billion times alone.

Even if Not Like Us saw the crown slip, he remained the fourth most-streamed artist on the platform last year.

"His reputation might be in tatters within certain circles, but commercially, he remains bulletproof," says Borkowski.

It helps that Drake harnessed mass appeal by sampling a myriad of genres in his pomp of pop-rap dominance.

His catalogue - boasting 45 UK top 10 singles, (including six number ones), and over 300 hits in the US Hot 100 - inhaled fumes of grime, dancehall and afrobeat.

The camouflage from his status as a commercial chameleon means that "despite the clear L and Not Like Us becoming a defining moment in rap history, Drake keeps moving", says Borkowski.

On $ome $exy $ongs 4 U's track Gimme A Hug, Drake seems to wave the white flag in his Kendrick battle saying: "[Expletive] a rap beef, I'm tryna get the party lit."

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It's worked, too, at least commercially. According to Billboard, Apple Music confirmed $ome $exy $ongs 4 U's release broke first-day R&B streaming records on the platform.

In Friday's official UK charts, the album came in at number three.

Three of its songs also made up the top 40 - including Gimme A Hug.

Critical reception, meanwhile, has been mixed. Vulture described it as "yearning pre-beef star finding his footing", with a sound "conscientiously re-establishing" his earlier aesthetic.

Rolling Stone's Jeff Ihaza, in a three-and-a-half-star review, spoke of a "return to form from an artist whose back was truly against the wall".

Pitchfork's Alphonse Pierre, however, was scathing, lambasting "a desperate album from one of rap's most notorious narcissists".

Regardless, Borkowski is clear on the strategy - Gimme A Hug, like the album, isn't a response track, it's an abdication from the fight. A recognition that Drake can still win, just on a different rap turf.

So, where is Drake headed if he's conceding the rap battlefield? The answer is the nostalgia play.

Weeks before the release of this new album, Drake opened his Australian tour by coming out on stage in a vest with smoking bullet holes. He closed the show by declaring: "My name is Drake, I started in 2008, I came all the way from Toronto, Canada. The year is now 2025, and Drizzy Drake is very much still alive."

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For music and culture journalist Manu Ekanayake, the new album revisiting his early 2010s era, when he "sounded confident in what he was trying to do", mirrors this.

But, he warns, "after three recent albums of being the least convincing tough guy in town, can he really go back to being the singing party boy?".

He's certainly going to try. Days after the album drop, Drake announced an unprecedented three-night takeover of London's Wireless Festival this summer, with each night's set focusing on a different part of his career.

Organisers confirmed the dates sold out in record time. For Borkowski, this is a "masterclass in reframing".

"Drake is curating his own legacy, reminding people of his longevity, and shifting the conversation away from defeat and back to dominance."

Ekanayake is less sure of the long-term potential: "Now at 38, it all sounds very different from when he was in the first flush of success in his 20s.

"What seemed before like a young artist giving hip-hop a new approach for a new generation, now sounds like it's the end of something."

But, ultimately, Borkowski goes back to the bottom line. "His fans aren't music purists, they're Drake fans - here for the lifestyle, the vibes, and the brand. And as long as he delivers that, nothing truly sticks."

The true power move? Securing Live Nation for his rebrand, says Borkowski.

"It's about staying relevant, ensuring the hits don't stop and keeping the machine running. In today's music industry, perception is currency, and despite the setbacks, Drake is still cashing in."

Good thing too, as Lamar's Not Like Us shows no signs of slowing down on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Compton star's already made US history by becoming the first rapper to have three albums in the Billboard top 10 - with his latest release GNX also number one.

The battle may be over, but the chart war has just begun.