Drake: Certified Lover Boy

Republic Records

Certified Lover Boy Album Cover

Republic Records

Two and a half stars out of Five

On Drake's sixth official LP, Certified Lover Boy, pop's go-to singer and rapper takes an overlong victory lap with middling results. Of course, anyone familiar with Drake's work should have seen this coming; since 2016's Views, the artist has been overstuffing his projects to ensure successful streaming numbers, and while most fans wouldn't complain about more material, the problem is how much of it fails to live up to his 2011-15 creative peak.

Certified Lover Boy is standard in the strictest sense of the word, a collection of enjoyable albeit half-baked Drake songs that sound a lot like watered-down versions of better Drake songs. While it works as background music for Drake fans, the moments actually worth celebrating here are few and far between; "Way 2 Sexy" gets by on the sheer irreverence of its sample and Future's hook, while "You Only Live Twice" is carried by Rick Ross and the best Lil Wayne verse in over a decade. On "No Friends in the Industry," Drake actually tries his hand at something fresh and exciting for the star; it's just a shame it takes 46 minutes to get there.