Every Scary Hours collection proves that Drake’s best responses are by way of bars.
The first EP, which came out in 2018 and included “Diplomatic Immunity” and “God's Plan,” delivered his second most streamed song of all-time with the latter and further solidified his hit-making ability.
The 2021 installment delivered one of his best lyrical performances to date (“Lemon Pepper Freestyle”), a chart-topping hit (“What’s Next”), and fed the streets with bars (“Wants and Needs”) in response to lack of music prior to the release of the long-awaited Certified Lover Boy.
Now, with the third edition, Drake answers for the bars that were lacking in the original version of For All The Dogs and once again proves that within his vast musical arsenal, his greatest weapon against adversity will always be his uncanny ability to rhyme his critics into submission.
The immediate reaction to For All The Dogs was mixed. Social media commentary suggested that his R&B-leaning fans loved it, while a majority of his rap fans felt like it left much to be desired. Yet the six new tracks added to the For All the Dogs: Scary Hours Edition have the bars, beat choices, and song topics that will appease his rap-leaning sector of fans.
Not that he’ll admit to needing to placate his critics. “I feel no need to appease anybody,” he said in the trailer teasing the new release. “I feel so confident about the body of work that I just dropped, I know I could go disappear for, whatever, six months, a year, two years—even though I’m not really into the super-lengthy disappearances for the sake of mystery. But, you know, ultimately, it’s coming to me in a way that I haven’t experienced maybe since, like, If You’re Reading This [It’s Too Late], where I feel like I’m on drugs."
It’s pretty clear that Drake pays attention. “I hear every single thing, man, I’m all ears like I took a fan to Disney,” he raps on “You Broke My Heart.” He said he didn’t care about the criticism FATD received, but the Scary Hours Edition sounds like he locked himself in a room for five days with nothing but his thoughts and negative album reviews and rapped out his feelings. Scary Hours Edition has earnest life updates, petty bars, a legitimate sparring match with J. Cole, and illustrative storytelling. His antagonistic sentiments are still there, like the call-and-response “fuck my ex” on “You Broke My Heart,” but even those sound better over production from Boi-1da, Alchemist, Conductor Williams, and other boom-bap specialists.
“To all the ladies wondering why Drake can’t rap like that same old guy, it’s cause I don’t know how anymore,” Drake raps on “The Shoe Fits.” This opening bar sounds like a direct response to the “old Drake” expectations that For All The Dogs set for itself during its rollout. The track is still riddled with increasingly immature diary entries directed toward women in the first verse, but Drake balances the scales by telling a story in the closing verse about a man losing his ex to James Harden. This equal-opportunity pettiness is so hilariously devious that it makes these “harsh truths” come across more creatively rather than simply bitter like many of the songs on For All The Dogs.
The shots he sends on Scary Hours Edition are also more direct. Much like on the first Scary Hours, Drake isn’t scared to send another jab at Pusha T. On “Wick Man,” he references Push’s “tick, tick, tick” bar from “The Story of Adidon" about Noah “40” Shebib and flips it on him. He also finds time to respond to Joe Budden’s FATD criticism on “Stories About My Brother,” when he raps “Imagine us getting our validation from an ex-musician searching for recognition.”
But even amidst the slick disses and petty raps, Drake still finds time to go a little deeper, questioning religion after the loss of someone close to him. “Living for right now cause I really think that heavens a front/Nadia died in Dubai, I waited for her spirit to come by for like 17 months/That shit didn’t visit me once,” he raps on “Wick Man.” On the same song, he also touches on still dealing with different complexities about his mixed heritage when he says, “White America said I’m becoming a threat/Black America love to remind me what mama look like, as if I’d ever fuckin forget/I'm never enough.” Drake very rarely speaks on racial politics of any kind, so this is the type of openness that makes the Scary Hours deluxe an enhancement.
Rap commentary is cyclical when it comes to Drake in recent years. He’ll drop an album that doesn’t please his entire fanbase, the reviews will reflect that, and then he returns shortly after with a vengeance like John Wick. Honestly Nevermind wasn’t for everyone; then he dropped Her Loss. Drake isn’t rapping like a different person on Scary Hours, but where he croons through his boastfulness on the first edition, here he lays out his current disposition in plain terms. “Humble back in 2012, now I give arrogant bars,” he raps on “Stories About My Brother.”
Despite dropping four albums in a two-year span, For All The Dogs: Scary Hours Edition is the most energized and creative Drake has sounded in a while. If this is truly “the storm before the calm,” as he says on “Stories About My Brother,” then the “golden age” of the Drake era might have a few more years left.
