Hate him or love him, it’s impossible to deny that Drake has pretty much continuously made moves to stay not only relevant, but somewhere near the top of the hip-hop game for nearly a decade. Whether he’s pumping out a smattering of albums or taking long breaks between featured singles, as is the case this time, he seems to always return with a powerful reminder of his prevalence, importance, and understanding of hip-hop’s direction.
After an uncharacteristically long and quiet absence, Drake has hopped on as the introductory feature to Memphis rapper BlocBoy JB’s vehement new jam, Look Alive. Though we love sad, romantic Drake, smooth, sultry Drake, 80’s revival, soft-pop Drake, and Wayne-protégé adlib Drake, I think we love angry, out-to-prove-something Drake the most, and this song falls right into that category.
He leads off the track with a bouncy, rhythmic verse fitting of the song’s simplistic, heavy keystroke and bass production and paving the way for the song’s hero, the emphatic, youthful, and unapologetically Tennessean BlocBoy JB. JB, the Memphis rapper who first reached widespread notoriety with his 2017 Southern hip-hop anthem, Shoot, provides an expectedly energetic and unique verse that exhibits the tone and force of the exploding Tennessee scene. For the most part, listeners will come for Drake, but hopefully they learn to stay for BlocBoy JB.