What a Time to Be Alive, Drake and Future’s collaborative, surprise-released, so-called mixtape, is a perfectly timed victory lap for two MCs at the top of both their game and the rap game. The pairing makes sense: Drake and Future have toured and recorded together previously; they’re both fresh off Billboard 200 No. 1s; each trafficks in moody styles that blur Auto-crooning and rapping. And the chemistry works as expected, even if it never exceeds, or even reaches, the sum of its artists.
Undeniably, the album feels more like a Future album featuring Drake. It’s produced largely by trusted Future associate Metro Boomin and is thick with the dizzy, aggressive trap aesthetic that the rapper has been cultivating for the past year. It’s creepy and effective, even when Drake’s pop sensibilities shine through on such songs as “Plastic Bags” and “Diamonds Dancing,” which feel like soundtracks for drunk sex in public locations.
There’s no transcendent moment, because the project is essentially a meeting of opposites who stay in their lanes. Yes, both artists balance monologues about self-loathing with big boasts. But Future deals with dark demons that he tries, and fails, to drown in drugs; Drake airs insecurities and feels of lesser gravity. To Future, women and luxury are a trap he can’t seem to escape; to Drake, they’re a well-deserved goal he’s constantly chasing.
On “Big Rings,” the album’s de facto title track, Drake brings self-congratulatory shit-talking and empty toasts, while Future is full of such pathos that his lyrics almost read as a subliminal threat to his co-star: “I run with kidnappers/I’m talking about kidnappers/I’m talking about murdering n—as/I’m talking about carjackers/You just a battle rapper/I’m an official trapper.” On “Live From the Gutter” Future is a tour guide expressing survivor’s remorse (“I see scales everywhere/I see heroin everywhere … Just imagine you were living lavish and they still there”), while Drake is a tourist, picking up girls to take home and basically taunting Chris Brown to jump in his Instagram comments by referencing his ex, Karrueche Tran.
Ideologically, the two rappers finally meet in — where else? — the strip club. On “Plastic Bag,” they speak to dancers with condescension masked as respect; on “Change Locations,” they’re partying with “60 naked bitches” and “all the bottles.” The hook, delivered by Future, is forlorn, speaking to the emptiness of such a lifestyle. Drake, however, sparkles with melodic glee: “Me and my friends, we got money to spend.” It’s the perfect song for a night of conflicted ballin’, full of the disconnective adrenaline rush you get when mixing power and loneliness.