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Album Review: What a Time to Be Alive

With Drake on course to have the biggest year in hip hop history, and Future’s auto-tuned drawl cropping up all over the charts, What a Time to Be Alive was set to be one of the biggest-draw hip-hop collaborations of all time.

Classified officially as a mixtape, What a Time to Be Alive’s 11 tracks wander from one Moet and lucy-addled night at a strip club to another. With Metro Boomin on the beats for most of the tape’s 40-minute runtime, the instrumentals are trippy and minimalistic, with snappy, bassy backbones.

Essentially, the mixtape occupies an uncanny sonic and stylistic middle ground between Drake and Future’s solo work, each in turn sounding like the other. This, coupled with fairly formulaic production, means that if you don’t love it after the first few tracks, you probably shouldn’t listen any further.

That being said, there are several bright spots on What a Time to Be Alive. “Digital Dash” is the opening track on the album, and showcases Future at his barely-understandable best. Lacing lyrics about women and foreign cars over an unquestionably head-nod-inspiring beat, this track marks the only place on the tape where Future outdoes his counterpart from the six.

Drake completely takes over for the next 10 tracks, and is at his best on “Plastic Bag.” Crooning to a stripper as she picks up all her singles at the end of the night, Drizzy is at his placating best. Producer Neenyo’s beat, based off of a sample of waves crashing on a beach, works on every level. This is the last call, 3am, drunk texting, Henny-addled Drake we have come to know and love, and it’s nice to hear from him.

Unquestionably the album’s best track comes from one of the hit-makingest duos in hip-hop, Drake and Noah “40” Shebib. “30 for 30 Freestyle” comes at the end of the track listing, and makes the arrival of 6 God all the more anticipated. 40’s signature piano and bass-heavy sound is there, and so is the OVO scion himself, making sure we all know just how much he ran rings around the game this year. Future is nowhere to be found, and listeners will be thankful for it.

Though it is probably more of a lead up project for both Future and Drake, What a Time to Be Alive reinforces just how often the two can turn out excellent, commercially successful work. With Kanye, Frank Ocean, and others maintaining relative radio silence, this mixtape makes sure the rap world knows who is on top.

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