The 10 Best Drake Verses
Graphic by @vm__designs
Stream the list: Apple Music, Spotify
Drake… it’s hard to know where to begin. In only one decade, he has become the RIAA’s #1 digital sales artist and one of the most commercially successful artists of all time. The only contemporary artists with more album sales than Drake are Rihanna and Taylor Swift, both of whom started their careers 5-6 years before So Far Gone was released in 2009. If we credit him with even a fraction of these sales throughout the 2020s, he will easily outsell artists like Queen, The Eagles, Mariah Carey, Pink Floyd, and Elton John, even though the industry has made a rapid shift towards streaming (which complicates the tracking of a single “sale”). In his comparatively short career, he has been credited with redefining rap and shying away from 2000s machismo in favor of a more emotional style. Drake is probably the most well-crafted artist ever - so far, he can’t lose.
In recent years, his success has become so overwhelming that he is essentially the only one breaking his own streaming and charting records. And considering that Certified Lover Boy is one of 2020's most anticipated releases, it doesn’t look like Drake is slowing down. A lot of these astonishing numbers are due to his expansion into different styles of music all over the world. For an artist this prolific, it would be impossible to stick within one genre. But Drake takes “experimentation” to a different level, sometimes garnering the “culture vulture” label. Since 2015, Drake has taken a shot at Latin trap, dancehall, UK drill, Afrobeat, and traditional pop. It’s hard to remember Drake when he was banking on rap as his main source of popularity and respect, but that time did exist, and it was pretty awesome. I went to back and listened to nearly every Drake song to create a list honoring why he deserves to be labeled a rapper (maybe even... one of the best...), even though he seems to have transcended the genre and that art form. Here are the top 10 raps from Drake’s career.
10. “9AM in Dallas”
Coming in at #10 is Drake’s first career catch-up in his “(moody time) in (random city)” series. Released in 2010 as a B-side to Thank Me Later, “9AM” is kind of a shock to listen to considering how far Drake has come. It’s a rumination on his expectations as Lil Wayne’s protégé and a typically boastful message to his peers that he was already miles ahead of them before his first album even came out. At this point, Drake was a newcomer in a very contentious rap scene that appeared to be splitting away from the hyper-masculine style of the 2000s. I’ve always loved this verse for it’s weird combination of vulnerability and pseudo-confidence. Drake has a knack for simultaneously looking like a nice guy and an asshole, and while “9AM” definitely shows us more of the latter, it proves how effective he is at navigating that imagery. My ranking on this is based on a nice mix of quality and nostalgia, but no matter what, this track communicates the confidence you need to have instilled in yourself from the start in order to be as successful as Drake.
9. “Cabaret” (with Justin Timberlake)
I debated having a feature this secondary on the list, but I couldn’t deny how great his verse is. Drake was really rapping in 2013. It seems like he steals the entire song when he breezes through one of Timbaland’s best beat-switches, but once his verse is over you realize how seamlessly he fits with Justin Timberlake’s sound on The 20/20 Experience. We get the usual wordplay of early-2010s Drake mixed with the sensual influence of the context. We can see the hints of Drake’s pop-stardom in this verse, mostly having to do with his willingness to make rap music aimed toward women – something a lot of his peers shied away from at the time. Drake is the perfect feature for this song because he was willing to follow JT in pursuing that demographic without shaking his confidence as a rapper. Drake’s brand never relied heavily on misogyny, and that let him join “Cabaret” and shine as a rap and pop icon. Not to mention his sex metaphors are impressively on-point, which is pretty difficult to do up next to Justin Timberlake.
8. “Summer Sixteen”
Some might call this track beating a dead horse (aka Meek Mill), Drake might call it “revenge,” but we can call it putting a third nail in the coffin. I love this track because of how completely unnecessary it was for Drake to release another song mocking Meek Mill after “Back to Back.” No one had ever lost a rap battle so quickly, and “Summer Sixteen” is Drake basking in that win in the most offensive way possible (and making merch out of it). His flows are tight and delivery concise, but most importantly, his ego is at 100. Confidence is a crucial aspect of rap music, but Drake has historically downplayed that throughout his career. This time, however, confidence is on full display. He bullies Meek Mill again, boasts that the Warriors practice at his house, completely disregards Tory Lanez as an artist, calls himself the new Jay-Z, and says Kanye’s pool sucks. At one point, all he raps is “6 6 6 6 6” and it’s the craziest part of the song. He sounds like he’s blacking out on this track with a freestyle-like recklessness that we rarely get from him. The charisma of a rapper can easily outweigh their talent, and while these verses made the list because they’re genuinely good, this song is more significant because of Drake’s willingness to be the mean guy for once in his career. There’s no Drake song that paints him more like a super-villain, and his reminder that he’s not even from this country made him look all the more God-like dominating rap from Canada.
7. “4PM in Calabasas”
Sticking with the trend, this track was another random loosie Drake dropped on SoundCloud. Premiered on OVO Radio mid-2016, it’s the most-recent of the list (spoiler alert). Drake letting his pen fly is always appreciated, even more so when he has lost his focus on rap, and “4PM” was a little stunt to remind rap fans why Drake had been the commercial king of the genre. Every time he fell deeper into a new international pop trend (in this case, dancehall and Views), he came back with something like this to make you hold onto his image as a rapper for just a little longer. It’s also the closest thing we’ve gotten to a specific update on Drake’s personal life compared to his usual clichés. He flaunts his fame Hollywood-style, waving at Kris Jenner outside of his house, bashing paparazzi, and directing architects to redo his porch. He even pays homage to golden-era rap by breaking into a 90s-style Mase flow and interpolating Grandmaster Flash, which is especially ironic for a song about his life in Calabasas, the furthest place from New York in every possible way.
6. “Lord Knows (feat. Rick Ross)”
As the out-of-place banger on Take Care, “Lord Knows” features 2011 Drake absolutely bodying a 3-minute verse over one of my favorite Just Blaze beats. If it weren’t for the slow start consisting of Drake setting yet another scene of insecurity as he debates checking his date’s phone while she’s in the bathroom, this verse would be way higher up on the list. Regardless of the Drake tropes in this track, “Lord Knows” is an exercise in bravado that feels extraordinarily believable for an artist who based his image around vulnerability at the time. It’s an amazing example of why Drake has been both respected and envied by all of his rap peers throughout his 10 years in the industry, and it’s a testament to Drake’s ability to merge his new-age artistry with classic hip-hop aesthetics.
5. “Versace” (with Migos)
Yes, this is over a minute of Drake taking the Migos’ flow and making it popular, but it’s amazing. If a DJ drops this at a concert, everyone over the age of 20 loses it on Zaytoven’s tag — this song was a phenomenon. Drake is akin to a cultural chameleon, sliding into new trends in different pockets of rap (and now “world music”) and looking like he invented them himself. The Migos were actually his first subject in this experiment, unless we count The Weeknd during the recording of Take Care, and he set them on the path to become the cultural icons they are now, for better or for worse. This verse is packed with IG captions and features some of Drake’s most confident, fast-paced delivery. It’s also a rare example of Drake not taking himself too seriously. He owns the spotlight he created for himself on this song and in the new-trap movement, and “Versace” is the strongest example of Drake’s trendsetting impact on rap music.
4. “Tuscan Leather”
Nothing Was The Same is the closest thing we have to a coherent album in Drake’s catalogue. It’s a focused, dark, emotional dive into the New Toronto sound he introduced on Take Care, and “Tuscan Leather” is the opener that summarizes every sound he’s planning on refining in the following hour. Split into three verses, all rapped over distinctly altered beats based on the same sample, this intro showcases Drake as an album-artist rapper, along the lines of a Kendrick or Kanye. Listening to this intro makes you feel like you’re about to enter a classic record, which might actually be true in this case. Drake sounds honed in on all levels of wordplay, delivery, content, confidence, insecurity, etc. How does he combine them? Being able to is what makes him so unique. “Tuscan Leather” is arguably Drake’s most “classic” sounding song in terms of style and persona, and if you played it for an oldhead hip-hop fan, they might think they were listening to the next great lyricist of the 2010s.
3. “5AM in Toronto”
Released in 2013 as the second track in the series, this is probably the most-fiery Drake verse ever. He doesn’t sound like himself at all, specifically in the context of “Hold On, We’re Going Home”-Drake, who defined himself by his sweet little rapper/singer persona. Sure, there are some corny lines and some typical early-2010s misogyny, but it’s nice to remember Drake when he was still trying to prove himself to other people in rap. Since then, his overwhelming success as a commercial icon seem to have clouded his desire to lyrically compete with any other artist. Literally everyone except Rihanna and Taylor Swift are below him sales-wise, so I guess it makes sense, but it’s great to open the time capsule and listen to Drake when he felt overlooked. Back then, numbers couldn’t do everything for him. He had to rap.
2. “Back To Back”
As one of the most legendary diss tracks to ever come out, “Back To Back” showed how ruthless Drake could be when his pen was challenged. In his most recent interview with RapRadar, he acknowledged that he felt particularly defensive against Meek Mill during this time since the one thing he had always prided himself on was his writing. “Back To Back” was the greatest reminder that Drake entered the music scene as a rapper and still remembered his roots. First off, this song is legitimately funny. Drake was willing to sacrifice an entire relationship with Nicki Minaj, one of his closest Young Money counterparts, just to make Meek Mill feel like shit about himself. On top of that, the theatrics of playing this song multiple times in a row at concerts and even sending literal bottles of champagne to Charlamagne on the morning of its release add to the petty hilarity of the whole thing. Never did anyone think Drake would put Meek Mill in his place (“Check him for a wire or an earpiece…”), let alone anyone in the macho rap community, but he did almost instantly with the release of this song. To rub it in even more, “Back To Back” was the first ever GRAMMY-nominated diss track. It was so impactful that Meek Mill admitted he still listens to it for motivation… In a career plagued by cultural Ls, this track was easily the biggest win Drake has gotten as a rapper.
1. “6PM in New York”
The quintessential Drake verse. As the closer on If You’re Reading This, Drake combines nearly every one of his artistic clichés into one massive 4-minute verse that showcases his most focused, archetypal raps and his most paranoid lyrics. This is Drake at the peak of his rapping career, pretty much giving a middle-finger to anyone that discredited him or wrote him off as a fad earlier in the decade. He’s emotional, a little bit butt-hurt (of course), passive, but audibly frustrated. In typical fashion, he condemns fame as some existential threat that has ripped away his trust and security, but he uses this song to convince everyone that he’s still grounded by his family and his team, regardless of what his musical peers are doing. He throws shots at anyone he even suspects of envying him: Tyga, Kendrick, Kanye. Most importantly, he took the hip-hop crown with this album and this song in 2015. If You’re Reading This shattered Drake’s image as the soft antithesis to 2000s rap. He adopted a darker, pessimistic aggression that nodded to Take Care but contained a new mafia-boss kind of aesthetic. It showed Drake claiming his legacy for the first time in his rap career, and he hasn’t been the same since. Sure, he still raps okay, he’s still emotional and vulnerable, but only in a surface-level way – in reality, Drake proved that he’s untouchable. “6PM in New York” showed that he wasn’t avoiding competition because he was scared — he believed he had already won. From this point on, “rap” has been peripheral to Drake’s career as a global pop star. This song is a grandiose declaration of Drake as a rap icon, and it’s especially powerful when If You’re Reading This was the first time anyone really considered him to be one.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
In a loosely particular order, the songs that almost made the cut.
“Miss Me” (2010)
“Stay Schemin’” (2012)
“Dreams Money Can Buy” (2011)
“From Time” (2013)
“0 to 100” (2014)