Canadian rapper Drake continues his grind of releasing new music as he collaborates with fellow rapper 21 Savage in “Her Loss”, Drake’s third album release in the last two years. This follows up his previous album “Honestly, Nevermind” which saw Drake experiment into a more EDM sounding album, yielding mix results. “Her Loss” sees Drake into what many consider to be a return to form.

Kicking off the album are three instant classics in “Rich Flex,” “Major Distribution” and “On BS,” which have multiple fun back and forth bars between Drake and 21 Savage along with some insane beat switches. An immediate appeal to these tracks is the mixing and production, which was one of the criticisms of Drake’s previous release “Honestly, Nevermind.”

A couple tracks show some surprisingly hilarious bars from Drake, such as “Spin Bout U,” calling out men being involved in the laws of Roe v Wade, along with 21 Savage delivering the line “I don’t need ID at clubs, ‘cause they know that I’m 21 (whoah, 21), in “Treacherous Twins.”

The one track that is a big highlight has to go to “Broke Boys,” which features one of the catchiest choruses in Drake’s discography, who also delivers some hilarious ad libs during 21 Savage’s verse and an interesting second half beat switch. Another highlight is “Middle of the Ocean,” which is performed by only Drake himself. This track sounds like something from his old days of “Nothing Was the Same,” with a great old school hip hop beat and verse deliveries by Drake, who comes through with clever rhymes throughout and a surprise outro from Birdman. With the way it was constructed, “Middle of the Ocean” will likely go down as one of Drake’s best tracks of all time.

The album isn’t without some misses though and one notable track is “Hours in Silence,” which features some singing vocals from 21 Savage that doesn’t quite hit the mark with his infamous monotone delivery, along with the repetitive lyrics throughout the track. Another miss is “Jumbotron Poppin,” another song performed only by Drake, who delivers some autotune vocals that sound way too similar to fellow rapper Young Thug, which many people have called Drake out doing in multiple tracks in the past. 

“Her Loss” isn’t without some controversy as well. This controversy primarily comes from the track “Circo Loco,” which features a slowed down reverb sample of Daft Punk’s classic track “One More Time.” The track features the line “This girl lie ’bout gettin shots but she still a stallion. She don’t even get the joke but she still smilin’” which was a clear jab at rapper Megan The Stallion, referring to the incident when she was allegedly shot by her ex and fellow rapper Torey Lanez after an argument at a party back in 2020. This sparked a lot of backlash from listeners and continues an unnecessary trend that rappers have made throughout the year by delivering derogatory-esque lines that bring down their fellow female rappers.

All in all, “Her Loss” is one of Drake’s strongest releases in years and also further bumps the career of 21 Savage up more, who has already been on an upward trend these past couple of years. This album provides all you need for a rap album from its fun verses, killer beats, beat switches and solid production work aside from a couple of skippable tracks. Many listeners can agree that Drake’s quality in music has been trending downwards despite the amount of record breaking sales and plays some of his tracks have had. Many call it out as a famous artist who can put out anything and it will still get plays even if it isn’t good. That said, it is safe to say that “Her Loss” is a welcome return to form for Drake.