The song that Drake called “a story of dreams”
In Kendrick Lamar’s recent Drake diss ‘Euphoria’, he includes the line, “Ain’t no accent you can sell me.” This was meant as an insult, nodding towards potential inauthenticity on the Canadian rapper’s part; however, it also acts as an interesting representation of the amount of range present throughout Drake’s entire discography.
Spanning what has been a decades-long career now, Drake has touched upon a variety of different subject matters, whether that is love, loss, hardships, flexing, being humble, or everything else in between. He has written enough now and to such a well-received standard that you will rarely hear a conversation about the top five rappers without Drake’s name getting a mention.
It’s interesting, then, that one of his very early songs was about reflecting on his struggle to put together a top-five list of rappers. The track ‘Dreams Money Can Buy’ was one of the early songs the rapper put out ahead of his album Take Care. It came out prior to the LP, as Drake wrote on his blog that it was something he “felt the need to share.”
When he tried to describe what the song was about, Drake stated that it was a “story of dreams mixed with reality.” Throughout the song, we see the rapper talk about the current state of hip-hop, as he despairs at the fact so many rappers either don’t make good music anymore or have passed away. The line, “I feel like lately it went from top five to remaining five / my favourite rappers either lost it or they ain’t alive.”
It’s interesting to look back on this song, as Drake was unaware that many of the people he was working with at the time and would go on to work with would end up filling those absent top five spots. Artists like Future, 21 Savage, and, despite recent beef, Kendrick Lamar all pioneer the rap game at the moment. Like any genre of music, artists need to retire in order to pave the way for the new generation.
We now look at the new generation and wonder who will be stepping up to the plate to take to top spots when the iconic rappers we listen to today decide to call it. There seem to be so many different subsections of hip hop these days that it’s impossible to know who will end up capturing the hearts of the public instead of just a niche subsection of the genre.
The song never actually made it into Take Care, but instead, it came out on the deluxe record Care Package eight years later. When Drake wrote a song about missing his top five rappers, he had no idea that he would enter the conversation later, but until then, it was all just a dream.