PERCEPTION CHANGES

January 30, 2022

One day I was listening to The Boy, (Drizzy Drake), I believe it was No Friends in the Industry, and I was like wow its crazy how menacing Drake sounds now. I remember when he was the bud of soft jokes, he may get those jokes still but its nowhere near how it was pre Nothing Was the Same. It had me thinking like man perception really changes.

Perception can be defined as “ a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression “. I vividly recall Drake’s original reception among rap fans. He was the loverboy way before CLB, but thats it, He was the guy who rapped extremely well but he was just a “soft guy” in his feelings. I never felt Drake was soft, if that’s the case everybody whoever made a R&B song is soft. People was letting his R&B side define him because that was extremely popular with women. So if you cater to women somehow you'‘re “soft”.

Anyways…

I believe perception started to changed for Drake starting with his 2015 release “If You’re Reading This Its Too Late”. Some may regard it as his best album and if it isn’t its definitely his most controversial release. As we all know, Drizzy’s pen was brought into question when Meek Mill exposed via twitter that Quentin Miller was the ghostwriter behind the most coveted singles on the project. Hip Hop purists were left flabbergasted, “oh no the boy didn’t write his raps for this album”, “how long has this going on???”, “is his 6pack even real"???!!”, by the way no one said that but pillars in the hip hop community were disappointed in the news. However, the real Drake fans did not give a single damn that he had help with his hits. We heard the demos, we were elated Quentin did not release the records as the main recording artist.

As most can recall when Meek called out Drake many thought it was the end of Aubrey Graham as we know it, and if this was to go into an audio world war, Meek and boisterous voice would surely come out the victor. What’s so ironic is, back in 2013 during our college days me and my roommates had a hypothetical argument about who would win in a battle, Drake or Meek Mill?

Me and one of my roommates instantly said Drake. My other roommate said Meek without a second thought and his reasoning was the same as any other rap fan, “Meek was a battle rapper this is what he do!!”. That mattered to me none beloved, I knew Drake is a perpetual student of the game and I recalled some spats he had during the Comeback Season era. I knew he would be more than ready but the world didn’t.

So Drake released Back to Back after the warning shot Charged Up and from this moment he began to look like the big bad wolf to me. Check it out, he drops Summer Sixteen which was basically a taunt for the first half of the song. Then he makes songs like Free Smoke, talking reckless saying anyone can get it. He gets so deep in his aggressive Drake rap bag people started rumors that he had XXXtentacion killed. And people supposedly had evidence! Wait… but this was just the guy everyone called soft but now people believe he’s capable of murdering bubbling rap stars.

It doesn’t make things better when he then drops a song called “Mob Ties” bragging about his “alleged” Houston street connections. It doesn’t stops there beloved, he gets on the 2019 song of the year, SICKO MODE and had everybody singing about driving down Ye’s block and shooting it up lmao! Oh you thought it was over??? No!! During the 2020 quarantine he dropped a viral tiktok inspired hit “Toosie Slide”. Everyone’s dancing but he spends the whole song basically talking about murdering someone and no one batted a eye! lmao.

So how did perception change from softest guy in the universe to 6God Badmon??! It’s quite simple actually,

I. CONSISTENCY

Often first impressions are last impressions, meaning what someone first meet you as that’s how you are always perceived at them. If you was the square dude that wasn’t known for having money or being flashy but years later you turn into a flashy street guy, no one’s gonna think hey that’s “flashy street guy”. They’re going to think why is “square basic dude” trying to be “flashy street guy”.

The only way we’ll believe “flashy street guy” is who he is, is if he consistently shows us that. We gotta see you flashing more than a year or two, and its gotta be gradual, you just can’t pop up on the gram with a stick in your hand when you just had a Charles Darwin book in your hand. Boy go sit down!!

Drizzy didn’t just start popping up outta nowhere with more aggressiveness in his raps it was build up. He let us know in 2013 on Pound Cake/Paris Morton 2 “Screw all that happy to be here ish yall want me on”. He was being bold saying yall gon respect, when his respect was tested for the first time on a huge level with Meek he responded accordingly. Another thing his image changed, he wasn’t scrawny Degrassi drake. He got muscles and a beard and looked like he was capable of physical damage. So the progressive tough talk was easier to digest.

This went longer than I intended, but all in all I wanted to make my point that someone perception of you can change over time. Various factors must come into play first. It even happened in my own life but that is a story for another day.

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