Nothing Was the Same

Out of all the Drake projects - and there’s a lot of them - the best and most personal to me is his third album and sixth project overall, Nothing Was the Same. It served as a transition; a “last hoorah” if you will, from “old Drake” into the post-If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late “new Drake” portion of his career that we see today. Considered by many to be his magnum opus (and for good reason), the album perfectly captures the artist that Drake was becoming, where he was in his life as well as a time period we all were in, but first I want to look at where he was right before...

Production and songwriting

Drake’s most recent effort up to that point was from two years earlier with Take Care, his sophomore album that first showed the world the Drake we know today. But he wanted to improve upon it. He said in an interview with MTV, ”The music I'm making is more concise, more clear, I've been able to get my thoughts across a lot better on this album. Take Care is a great album but I listened to it and realized where I could do better and I think I've done better on this album." This goal was achieved by creatively using samples that were unique to his sound, getting more personal in his lyrics, and expressing more emotion in his rapping, which I learned a lot from.

One of the things I learned from Nothing Was the Same is that simplicity is everything. “Started From the Bottom” is a club banger that features a sample from “Ambessence Piano & Drones 1” by Bruno Sanfilipo and Mathias Grassow, a minimalistic ambient piano piece that longtime Drake producer and engineer Noah 40 Shebib along with Mike Zombie used to create Drake’s hazy atmosphere, even in such a big and straightforward track that we’re meant to chant to. Speaking of, the song’s title is a simple phrase most would relate to. Many of us (even if you would argue that Drake himself didn’t exactly) came from real everyday struggle and hope to achieve success in spite of that, something the rest of the song touches on as well with personal anecdotes about Drake’s upbringing.

The hook is one that taps into that feeling of accomplishment when we make it and bring the rest of our team with us to the top, which Drake has done with his own team at OVO. Fun fact: the hook itself was taken from a phrase that Future would always say in the studio, and he spoke about it in an interview with Power 106, ”Drake came by the studio and I always tell my engineer, ‘Start it from the bottom.’” and of Drake, ”He was like, ‘Man, start it from the bottom, it stayed on my mind. I instantly got in the car with the driver and told him to put the CD in. I already had the beat and I just started saying, ‘Started from the bottom, now we here.’”

Another great example of this is on “Pound Cake”, which has nothing but a vocal sample from the song “Don’t Say a Word” by Ellie Goulding and a hard hitting rap drum beat.

Arguably the most creative sample use comes from the intro “Tuscan Leather”, which has three beats and six samples, the most obvious coming from Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing”. 40 reversed and pitch shifted the sample to give the song its high energy. And of course, my favorite sample on the entire album is on the last half of “Furthest Thing”, from the song “Hold On, For We’re Going Home” by the Corinthian Temple Cogic Choir; a soulful gospel song that is used to create a triumphant and Dropout Trilogy-esque feel that contrasts against the more laid back r&b feel of the song beforehand.

There are plenty of personal moments that Drake captures on the album, revealing a lot about himself and the world around him. On “Tuscan Leather” he says of his relationship with Nicki Minaj:
Not even talking to Nicki
Communication is breaking
I dropped the ball on some personal s***
I need to embrace it

...which is Drake taking accountability for his own issues with how he goes about other people, following it up with a poke at himself, ”I’m honest, I make mistakes, I’m the second to admit it”, a funny spin on being “the first to admit” something. Another piece of insight into the other people in his life is from the song “From Time” where he says:
My mother is 66 and her favorite line to hit me with is
Who the f*** wants to be 70 and alone?

This line is so sad; bleak even, one could say, that an older woman fears being alone as she gets older, which is a very real thing. From the same song Drake reveals yet another piece of personal history:
When I got Summer a Michael Kors with my momma's debit
A weak attempt at flexing, I'll never forget it
'Cause that night I played her three songs
Then we got to talking 'bout something we disagreed on
Then she start telling me how I'll never be as big as Trey Songz

A line that stings extra hard if you know about Trey Songz being an instrumental part of Drake’s comeup, being a feature on “Replacement Girl” from the mixtape Comeback Season and “Successful” from So Far Gone

On one of my favorites “Too Much”, Drake gives another look at his family life:
*Money got my whole family going backwards
No dinners, no holidays, no nothin'
There's issues at hand that we're not discussin'
I did not sign up for this
My uncle used to have all these things on his bucket list
And now he's actin' like, "Oh, well, this is life, I guess," Nah, f*** that s***
Listen man, you can still do what you wanna do, you gotta trust that s****

This paints a picture of a family growing more distant as money affects them, as well as Drake seemingly sending his uncle a direct message rather than just rapping a line for listeners to enjoy, and it can even be heard in the urgency of his voice on that line specifically.

What the album means to me

Nothing Was the Same was an album that I constantly heard anytime I would be driven by one of my older siblings somewhere in 2013 going on 2014, during my sophomore year in high school. I initially thought the album - along with Drake himself apart from “Over My Dead Body” - was pretty boring. When I had to hear this album in a car all day, it was pretty annoying.

But then when we moved summer of 2014 (well we were evicted then lived in a hotel then a shelter for some months then we found a new place), I started going to the downtown library and this was around the time I wanted to start listening to albums on my own. One day I randomly decided to listen to Nothing Was the Same, the album I had already hated beforehand but I needed something to start with and I was already familiar with it - so why not?

Now that I had the album to listen to for myself, I gained a new appreciation for it and took in the vibe and music in a completely different way. The album became soothing for me, with one of my personal favorites (and a favorite to a lot of people) “Hold On We’re Going Home”, a pop dance ballad co-written and produced by Majid Jordan along with Nineteen85 and 40. It features a clean “Billie Jean” type drum groove under classic r&b chords with pretty electric piano sounds and synths. With the feel of an 80s synthpop take on Drake’s “Find Your Love”, the melody and lyrics are simple and repetitive yet sincere, reflecting the timelessness Drake was going for with the track,

”It's me and 40 just channeling our Quincy Jones/Michael Jackson production duo,... Obviously no offense to the greats, I know we're not anywhere near that — it's just us kinda doing our thing, humbly attempting.

It's not a rap record,... It's not 'Versace,' it's not 'Started from the Bottom.' In approaching this album I was like man, it would be great if we had a record that was played at weddings in 10 years or that people that are away from their families in the Armed Forces could listen to. Something that just has timeless writing, timeless melody. So I did it with the group that we signed to OVO called Majid Jordan."

My all time favorite from the album after all these years is the second collaboration with singer Sampha, “The Motion”, a now-cult classic deep cut in Drake’s discography. The song is haunting, peaceful, and introspective all wrapped in one. Songs like it and others really show me why this album has endured in such a real way, I can’t wait for us to celebrate it on its upcoming 7th anniversary on September 24. Wow, time flies.

• BRAVR

It’s okay if you can’t read the whole thing this thread is more for us to talk about the album, what it means to us etc

op too real for this.

I read the whole thing. Give me Gold.

I’m not correcting BRAVR btw. It took on a life of its own at this point

Here’s your gold kind stranger

his best album, so creative

this album is the reason why I want another concise album from drake

I've never listened to it

You too my guy

@Brave doing a self reflection thread @safe style

-BRAVR

hey BRAVE there's a typo in your signature in the title

not gonna read this but i'm happy for you

Yeah it’s a great project. Fun songs, chill songs, pretty straightforward project you’ll like it

Some of his best straight rapping too

One of the best albums ever

Safe a GOAT fr. Threads like these are hopefully a nice refresher for the sxn