On April 20, a massive 25-foot-tall block of ice appeared in downtown Toronto, but not because of the cold weather. The ice was placed to promote Canadian rapper Drake’s new album, “ICEMAN.” 3,500 small blocks of ice assembled into one massive sculpture isn’t any small feat.
The grand gesture may come across as overhype, an ongoing issue in the music industry. Too often, popular artists spend too much time talking up an album that, frankly, isn’t that good. Why does this happen, and did it happen again with Drake?
Starting off with the album opener, “Make Them Cry,” Drake raps about topics such as getting himself back on rotation with radio stations. The lyrics, like many throughout the album, seem aimed at addressing some of the backlash from his ongoing feud with fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar. The feud has cost Drake a lot of support and fans, causing him to rap about getting back on rotation and fighting the “fake fans” who switched up on his music.
However, much of the rap community is having a hard time taking the album seriously. Many joked online, and one user with the handle Jasp3r_0 predicted Drake would say something along the lines of “I’m the Iceman, no more Mr. Nice Man.” In the real album, Drake says, “you tryna stop the show, ironic ‘cause the Iceman was a nice man, now I’m hot and cold” on the track “National Treasures.” Sounding extremely similar to the social media joke, this bar made the album too goofy for a lot of listeners and heavily impacted the online opinion. Green Hope student, Remi Périchon (‘27) said that one lyric was the only one from the album that stood out to him.
The public’s view doesn’t just stay digital either. The online mockery has swayed listeners’ opinions in real life, as they believe the album has been talked up for nothing. Many listeners are now afraid of receiving more overhyped slop from their favorite artists. ICEMAN was one such example. Périchon, an avid music listener, called the album an “Embarrassment to the music industry.” When artists hype up their albums, they practically put themselves and their music on a pedestal. Building excitement is always important for upcoming music releases, but it can also make fans believe an album will be something special. When the final product turns out to be mediocre, fans are let down.
Even down to the album cover, which depicted Drake’s hand wearing a diamond glove, Périchon was quick to point out that Drake “copied Michael Jackson, he tried to make something iconic when it’s not iconic at all.” This is the issue with popular music artists; album releases easily become a competition to generate the most hype. Once an artist has already broken into the mainstream, they start looking for the next big thing they can do. For passionate creators, the next thing should be producing more quality music that they want to make, but when more effort is put into the hype of an album than the actual music itself, the quality can suffer.
Breaking down his full opinion on the album, Périchon said the album was just “Streaming for numbers and market domination. Just because it has 43 songs doesn’t mean they’re good songs.” When asked about the overhype surrounding the artist, Périchon expanded to talk about the issue with the rap industry as a whole: “It’s become maximizing engagement streams and platform presence.” He also voiced some strong opinions about Drake as an individual, saying, “He’s like that one annoying ‘friend’ who thinks they’re friends with you, who follows you around at lunch. That’s what Drake is to the rap community, he doesn’t make any experimental anything. All he does is stay in the bubble where he can get more money.”
On the topic of overhype, Périchon talked about 2016: “That was hyping up good stuff, like when Drake and Kanye made better music. Now, hype culture has become part of the rap industry.” He does feel that there is a brighter future for the industry. “When there’s overhype and when there’s so much just bad stuff made to get money, naturally people will go to the music they actually enjoy.” He named 90s rap artists like Ice Cube and Tupac as the “people that actually built the rap industry.”
Overall, the ICEMAN album may be a big release, but it still comes at the height of a massive problem in the rap and music industry. Just because a release is talked about often and has big promotional events like Drake’s ice block, quality isn’t guaranteed.
Naturally, every industry goes through its own trends, so the overhype with rap may just phase out soon. When listeners realize they’re stuck with overproduced slop, better music can come as natural creativity takes over.
