Drake & Future or Drake & 21?

Her Loss is more of a Drake album and WATTBA is more of a Future album. Future and 21 performed incredibly on their respective projects, both arguably better than Drake on each, but Drake performed better on Her Loss. The 3 song run of Diamonds Dancing, Scholarships and Plastic Bag is legendary, and WATTBA had a huge hit in Jumpman, but the project lacked the level of creativity and craftsmanship that Her Loss has (thanks to 40). Drake and Future made WATTBA in apparently 6 days, but the lack of time spent shows in the overall cohesiveness of the album. Now to be fair, I’m calling it an album but Drake claims this is a mixtape, so the quality difference makes sense.

However, Drake and 21 spent a lot longer on Her Loss and definitely treated it like an album. The arrangement, production and song concepts were just at a higher level overall. The album also put a spotlight on 21 Savage, who deserves to be recognized as one of the elite rappers of his generation. Despite Future and 21 flexing on Drake, I will say my favourite songs on each project were the more “Drakesque” songs. Hours in Silence is easily in the top 20 Drake songs ever made (the timeline very much agreed with me on this), and if you’ve never thrown a stack of ones in the strip while Plastic Bag is playing, that is an experience you need to have to truly connect with the song. 

Sadly, given the issues Drake has with Future and Metro, we’ll never get another WATTBA. If you’re a fan of Her Loss, at least there’s a chance of us getting a sequel.