This Week in Sales: How You Should Feel About Drake’s “Take Care” at #1

Welcome to the most anti-climactic article of all-time. Right about now, with the news that Drake's "Take Care" debuted at number one and moved an impressive-no-matter-how-you-look-at-it 700,000 copies, I know Drizzy lovers are throwing up a middle finger to the haters, and the haters are bemoaning the softening of hip-hop. Both groups need to relax. Unfortunately there are no real lessons to be learned from Drake's success that we didn't already know: if you've got a huge female fanbase, millions of Young Money dollars behind you and at least make some decent music, you can move a lot of albums. Surprise, surprise.

There are still two points I'd like to make though. First, Drake's actually much less of a label slave than many would assume. As I wrote before, moving quickly is essential to success these days, and Drake consistently throws off Universal's shackles and moves on his own. He routinely not only releases free music himself, but "leaks" his own album singles, putting them out via his site without waiting for the label to get their shit together.

Universal and Drake actually have an oddly contentious relationship. They'll never officially say it, but they hate the fact that he puts out music on his own; trust me I get their cease and desist orders. But when they complain Drake just (figuratively) faxes them a copy of his album sales, then has Lil Wayne do the same, and tells them to shut the fuck up and go back to counting their share of the money he's bringing in. That refusal to let Universal interfere is actually a large part of his success, and something I have to respect him for.

Second, I know there are a lot of young - or hell, even old - rappers out there who are going to look at that 700k and think, "Man, I need to be more like Drake." I get it, who doesn't want to be rich and fuck big booty "models"? But the important thing to remember is that the Drake lane is closed and occupied solely by Drake. Trying to sound like Drake means competing with Drake, and you'll never out-Drake Drake (if that makes any sense).

In a perfect world artists would write "Take Care" off the anomaly it is - you've got just as good of a chance at being as big as Drake as the average chick has of looking like Beyonce - and focus on another number one album instead. Provided you're willing to work your ass off and are smart, the Mac Miller blueprint can actually be followed by the masses. But this is America, and rappers would rather die trying to be superstars than live as mere stars.



If there's any lesson to be learned from "Take Care", that's really the only one that matters.

See Also: Who Wants to Read Me Break Down Drake’s “Take Care”? (Album Review)