Can Drake Just Make Good Music Again?

We love Drake. We swear we do. But this latest interview on Bobbi Althoff’s Not This Again podcast just won’t land the way he thinks it will. Over nearly 90 minutes, Drake touches on everything from the BBL allegations to the lingering “culture vulture” critiques, and even addresses his strange public friendship with Bobbi.

The vibe is casual. He and Bobbi bicker back and forth like siblings, which makes for an easy listen, but not a meaningful one. After the year Drake has had, which includes losing one of the highest-profile battles of his career to Kendrick Lamar, fans and critics wanted clarity, self-awareness, maybe even humility.

Instead, they got Drake curled up in bed, dodging responsibility, and spinning his usual charm into thin air. His quotes will no doubt go viral online. But that doesn’t mean this approach is going to save him. If anything, leaning on personality when the music is weak and the narrative is shaky just makes the cracks more visible. Here’s what we took away from the interview and the response to it so far.

Collective eye-roll in real time

For years, Drake has thrived on staying in the conversation, whether through music, memes, or viral antics. But this time, the cultural reaction feels different. People aren’t amused; they’re annoyed. Instead of sparking intrigue, the interview has become another reminder that Drake is running on fumes.

Music critic Gerrick Kennedy laid that out with surgical precision in response to Drake’s POV of modern-day music journalism, writing:

“Traditional media ppl do not sit around and have a group call about position/agenda/anything. Respectfully I wish Drake actually sat down with a traditional journalist. He won’t because he knows he can’t control us. He can’t approve the questions. Or the final product (well he can at a few publications). Instead he’s literally laying in bed with someone talking about media conspiracies. He’s been doing goofy things for a long time and it’s confusing because the man is smarter than this.”

That critique alone could have carried the conversation, but fans piled on with the same energy.

“Kendrick diss records aging like Kyla Pratt,” quipped @Yoh31, roasting Drake in less than 10 words.

Teen Vogue editor Kaitlyn McNab was even blunter, writing, “God help us all as the Canadian Doll opens his mouth again.”

Could these just be jokes? Absolutely. But they also capture a shift in tone. Drake discourse has gone from eye-rolling annoyance to active disbelief that he still doesn’t get it. At this point, people want Drake to prove he can still be great. And every unserious move only deepens the suspicion that maybe he can’t.

The music isn’t backing him up anymore

Drake is a musician. People want the music first, not the antics. That’s why this entire strategy of trying to win fans back with podcast appearances feels off. Why didn’t he take time off, lock himself in the studio, and work on creating a project that moved us?

Instead, we’re here with another viral interview that does nothing for fans. Worse, the singles he’s released in advance of Iceman, “What Did I Miss?” and “Which One?," haven’t landed with the kind of dominance we’re used to seeing from him. People are drained: by Drake’s endless output, by his defensiveness, by his refusal to step back and recalibrate.

“It’s damage control disguised as candor.”

Addressing old critiques too late

One of the strangest elements of this interview is Drake finally addressing the “culture vulture” allegations that have shadowed him for years. He admits that he doesn’t like to be called an opportunist.

“People will describe the collaborative efforts that I've put forth and the artists that I've picked up and lifted up or shined a light on as me taking,” he says. "They’ll put a negative spin on it. I think I get really sensitive about that.”

This comes years too late. These critiques started back in the mid-2010s, when people accused Drake of hopping on sounds from the U.K., Jamaica, and beyond, and throwing on whatever accent suited him. Had Drake sat down years ago and seriously unpacked those critiques, he might have controlled the story. But addressing them now, after Kendrick’s diss tracks reignited the debate and had everyone calling him one, makes him look defensive, even desperate. It’s damage control disguised as candor.

Wrong interviewer

Drake defends his choice to return to Bobbi’s platform with a bizarre explanation.

“It changed a lot of things for a lot of people,” he says. "It just made people so angry that two people who actually have just maybe nothing to talk about or everything to talk about but just based on random energy could could come together. It changed a lot of things, like on TikTok. It changed a lot of things in the streaming world. It made people more comfortable to go sit down with somebody that they've never sat down with before.”

If you can’t follow that, you’re not alone. The logic here is flimsy at best, and, at worst, dismissive of the very industry that’s covered and elevated him for over a decade. Framing journalists as “losers” and then opting for Bobbi once more, someone whose brand is built on awkward silence, not sharp questioning, feels like Drake deliberately dodging accountability… again. This isn’t a new trick. Major artists often cozy up to friendly platforms when they’re on the defensive, but the difference is most of them still deliver musically. Drake isn’t right now, which makes the whole exercise feel even more hollow.

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