Drake review – rap's majestic magpie makes world domination look easy
‘These girls don’t know what’s going on!” Ten minutes into the opening night of Drake’s European tour and Liverpool is showing Manchester how it’s done. I’m enjoying a quiet shoulder shimmy to myself when two scousers descend, tequila-beers in hand, dismayed at the static women next to them in the stands. One peels off a sweater bearing the owl of Drake’s label OVO to reveal a T-shirt with the same logo, and an arm full of Drake ink: that owl again, a pair of praying hands, and a “6” that denotes the number of boroughs in the Canadian rapper’s home town of Toronto.
Drake has now reached the level of fame where people separated from him by an ocean etch his iconography on to their skin. The most streamed artist in the world last year, he has become an omniscient, omni-talented entertainer: seductive lover, jostling thug, familyfriendly pop star and just about authentic in all three modes. His attachment to different global scenes – New Orleans bounce, UK rap, Jamaican dancehall – can almost seem parasitic, leeching off the edgy cultural capital from each. But the affection and glee of his cosmopolitanism means he is a true child of the internet, and indeed the private jet: a man able to hop between cultures and draw them together. Witness the mid-set breather here, hosted by London rappers Dave and Fredo performing their No 1 single Funky Friday atop a giant union jack. “This is how the world is supposed to work,” Drake announces towards the end, celebrating the ultra-diverse crowd in the building – and it’s a world he has helped to define.
Nine full-length releases into his career, he’s now armed with a greatest hits set that allows him to cluster tracks into stylistic megamixes: a run of braggadocious trap guest spots here, a montage of early tracks or chart-topping singles there. The latter sequence, which delivers One Dance, Nice For What, Hotline Bling and In My Feelings come in quick succession, is overwhelmingly joyous. This is Drake’s own lane, where he uses that magpie tendency to synthesise a new kind of sensual, female-facing pop. Such is his heartthrob status that the women around me holler the climactic line of the antichild support anthem I’m Upset – “Can’t go 50/50 with no ho” – with mischievous delight.
As with his recent run of US shows, he uses a giant HD screen as a stage, which is a neatly democratic gesture – the best vantage point for its animations is in the nosebleeds, giving every seat a piece of the action. Dressed in a multi-pocketed Louis Vuitton utility jacket like an angler with a Lambo, he deploys some old-school – even hackneyed – entertainment tactics: splitting the crowd into left and right and playing off each side against the other, leading to some Sharks-and-Jets-style transgressive flirtation across the central aisle. “Make some noise for the people who love you unconditionally,” he shouts, and the arena swoons in a fuzzy cloud of dopamine.
Add fireworks exploding in time to Jumpman, a swarm of miniature drones that create a starscape during Elevate, a troupe of dancers who do a yoga class in the middle of Controlla, and a basketball court in which a bloke fails to win £20,000 with a half-court shot, and there is enough to distract from the fact that this isn’t exactly a showcase of technical mastery. Aside from a neat run of triplet-time flow on Know Yourself, there is little that truly stretches him; his croon wobbles into a bum note on Jaded, and he mostly gets by on attention-deficit blasts of lyricism and MC hype rather than longform craft.
But it’s not the time to get caught up in that – this is a glittering showcase of a pop star truly in his imperial phase. By the end, the scousers are in full chirpse with a gaggle of bodyconned young women, and all is as it should be at a Drake concert.
At Resorts World Arena, Birmingham, on 26 March. Then touring.