Review: Drake & 21 Savage, ‘Her Loss’

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Drake is the center of attention on his collaboration alongside 21 Savage, an often good record that doesn’t sacrifice the concept of equity and instead focuses on the wiggles of content.

Rap’s most popular shapeshifter is always evolving to a new form. It was just five months ago that the rapper dropped his house-infused “Honestly, Nevermind” which was a fabled experiment with more memorable tracks than. The album’s last track featured “Jimmy Cooks” with 21 Savage The album’s sole hip-hop track, and its biggest success. It turns out that it was an Easter egg that was a hint of the next album to be a sixteen-track collaboration Atlanta-based rapper. The faux-rollout was characterized by imitations of Vogue covers fake interviews, as well as SNL, Tiny Desk and COLORS performances (that will surely be disregarded in court on the pretext on parody).

Her Loss shows the duo having a lot of fun, even when it’s at the expense of album qualities that are important to the album.

The track is Drake coming back to his love for trap music similarly to his projects like If You’re Here It’s too late and It’s Time to Be Alive and Future. It’s easy to appreciate how Drake as well as 21 Savage do not complicate the process. Their music is infused with personality, as evidenced by Drake’s witty track in the album’s opening track “Rich Flex” (“21, will you help me? ?”), and a few snarky bars that are self-aware enough not to take seriously. Songs that boast of samples are like the soft “Privileged Rappers” and “Circo Loco” with the latter showcasing Daft Punk to punchy effect.

What you’re hoping for is the raunchy Savage sound you hear in his solo music as well as previous collaborations with Drake (“Sneakin'”, “Knife Talk”). The tracklist is awash with it beginning with the second part of “Rich Flex” and continuing with “Broke Boys”, “On BS” and “More M’s”. While 21 gets to shine during these tracks, Drake has shown how he can match the look effortlessly.

In the return, Drake brings 21 into his slow-and-reverbed world. It has a less refined ending however it has its sparkling sparks (i.e. the beginning in “Hours in Silence”). He embarks on signature Drake timestamp-in-location duty on “3AM in Glenwood”, which is too flat in production to add any weight to Savage’s blunt performance. While they’d love to demonstrate their diversity the song instead generates an humorous joking. Who would not find 21 Savage singing “.30 on my waist” off-key hilarious?

The biggest obstacle to the fun that is her loss is the substance. Her Loss is designed to be an angry fuck-you letter to the former women from Drake as well as 21’s life. It is the top in male toxicity. However, this isn’t the case for creative music. It’s more of distracting from songs with lots of potential. Bars are blatantly vulgar, with 21 Savage making reference to periods not just at all, but two times and forgetting that we need to hear them again. Drake’s side is that he hits out at Serena Williams, references muted Ice Spice memes, and the double entendre of Megan Thee Stallion. In a record that portrays an attitude of masculinity there’s no passion for a fight where he pulled his straws in the dirt (Pusha K, Kendrick Lamar). If bars are present that are a bit sexy, they’re not subtle to be able to convey the effect of female puns.

In spite of the collaborative label, Her Loss often puts 21 Savage in an additional idea. There’s not much difference, let alone equal in sharing the responsibility. Drake offers himself four solo tracks as opposed to 21’s single which takes most of the time of tracks like “Hours in Silence” and “Spin Bout U”. This is to the detriment the album since, when 21 is present on stage, he usually drops unforgettable single-liners. The two only exchange bars for a single time in 60 minutes, and that’s in the beginning in “Broke Boys”. Without such essential elements in a collaborative rap album, how could the possibility of a future collaboration be overlooked?

Do you think Her Loss have a “Jumpman”? Do you think Her Loss have a “Know Yourself”? It’s ironic, “Jimmy Cooks” could be the perfect song had it not been tacked onto “Honestly, Nevermind”. In spite of the best songs on Her Loss, “Jimmy Cooks” could have been the most memorable song should it have been included in the collection. It’s a testament to the consistency of Her Loss but it also misses the classic songs that are at the top of the list of their established music and chemistry.

6.5 / 10

Top songs:“Circo Loco”, “P***y & Millions”, “Rich Flex”