No one quite knows how to harness music streaming-services for their artistic ends-but More Life shows Drake is willing to give it a shot.Ĭlocking in at 22 songs, More Life is part of an ongoing musical trend: The biggest and buzziest pop records these days are also, increasingly, literally the biggest. More Life allows Drake to use the specific framework provided by a still-emerging art-distribution platform in service to his art and his brand. It is full of gem-like pleasures, from the summer-succulent “Passionfruit” to the recorder-whistling flow-off on “Portland” to the lissome “Teenage Fever,” complete with a delicious sample of ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez.īut it’s also more than that. And to that end, it’s a triumph, an 81-minute globetrotting tasting menu of his comfortable guises: trap Drake, grime Drake, house Drake, afrobeat Drake. One thing is for sure: More Life certainly means more music. So the fact that the Canadian rapper who charged up the hip-hop game and now towers over the genre from his CN Tower perch has urged us to refer to this project as a “playlist” just leaves us asking more questions. It’s not quite an album-it’s more casual than that-and it’s not quite a mixtape it’s more slickly produced than your typical EP. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)Īfter various delays and numerous false starts, Drake is back-did he ever really leave?-with his streaming-services “playlist,” More Life. Musician Drake, right, high fives Eddy Cue, Apple senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Monday, June 8, 2015.