Drake: "Hotline Bling"

“Hotline Bling” is 11 days old, and it has already been screamed by thousands of Drake fans at a festival he curated. Drake debuted it on Apple Music alongside his first of two Meek Mill disses, “Charged Up”.  A Twitter search of the song generates an ever-growing tail of celebratory Vines, chorus quotes. It is, by any standard, already a massive hit, thus proving once more that Drake’s Soundcloud is swifter, more merciless, and decisive than any single diss song.

The lyrics are not the story—this is an old-model Drake song, the pre-If You’re Reading This Drake who plucks women’s cell phones out of bags to scroll through numbers and concern-trolls them about how they’re “wearing less and going out more.” But the bump and shuffle of the beat, muted and intimate, is gorgeous and aching. It could be Timmy Thomas’ “Why Can’t We Live Together”, or it could be Shuggie Otis’ “Aht Uh Mi Hed”. Either way, it sounds like a candlelit dinner in an attic. Stripped to its husk, it could be a rewrite of the Police’s “Roxanne”—another halting, aching song about a guy who was probably a little too concerned about you, girl.

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