Yesterday Drake released “Back to Back Freestyle,” the latest chapter in his burgeoning feud with Meek Mill. That Philadelphia rapper lit the fire on Twitter last week when he alleged that Drake’s guest verse on his latest album, June’s Dreams Worth More Than Money, was ghostwritten. To some, Meek included, that’s a pox on “authenticity,” a slippery measurement of hip-hop greatness that, as the Beck-versus-Beyonce moment touched off by Kanye at this year’s Grammies showed us, remains a tool some music fans and even musicians themselves are eager to employ in an argument.
In “Hotline Bling” Drake’s focus is on an ex, and he hits all the major points of a scorned lover. He recounts the times she called him in need late at night (seemingly the hours when Drake is at his peak, given how much of his material seems to grow out of the wee hours); he mentions the reputation she’s garnered since he’s been out of town and out of touch, that she wears fewer clothes, goes out more frequently, and hangs with people he doesn’t know; and he does it all employing language that undermines his ex’s autonomy, chastising her for not acting like the “good girl” he once loved. Drake, or rather his protagonist, appears petty, selfish, and oblivious to the desires and wishes of the lives not in his orbit on “Hotline Bling.”
