14 Life Lessons Taught By Drake (That Aren’t ‘YOLO’)

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*Explicit lyrics and collabs excluded.

1. Over My Dead Body

“Now-a-days its six figures when they tax me
Oh well, guess you lose some and win some
Long as the outcome is income
You know I want it all and then some”
Lesson: Drake pays his taxes: let this be a lesson to us all.

2. Look What You’ve Done

“It’s like ’06 in your backyard and I’m in love with Jade
And I’m still in love, cause when it’s that real, it’s when it doesn’t fade
And my father living in Memphis now he can’t come this way
Over some mincharges and child support that just wasn’t paid”
Lesson: Love is miraculous and flawed in its ability to be the same word which embodies both of these scenarios. It means different things to every person it touches and evolves as subtly as you do.

3. Take Care

“You hate being alone
you ain’t the only one
you hate the fact that you bought the dream
and they sold you one
you love your friends but somebody shoulda told you somethin’,
to save you”
Lesson: We can’t only rely on ourselves, and we don’t want to either.

4. From Time

“I like when money makes a difference but don’t make you different
Started realizing a couple places I could take it
I want to get back to when I was that kid in the basement”
Lesson: Being rich/affluent/ballin’ does not mean you’ll be happy/content/cheesin’. It’s something in your life, but it shouldn’t be /the/ thing.

5. Connect

“How beautiful our kids would be, girl, I don’t need convincing
How every conversation starts with “this time will be different”
Lesson: Optimism is the bittersweet route of hope. It requires an acknowledgement that things could improve and a delicate promise that they will. Sometimes we break promises.

6. Successful

“I do a lot of things,
Hoping I never have to fit in,
So trying to keep up with my progress is like a dead end”
Lesson: Embrace yourself. Not with a hug, but with every instance of individuality that makes you a personality of your experiences. Live passionately and originally.

7. Doing It Wrong

“We live in a generation of not being in love,
And not being together.
But we sure make it feel like we’re together,
Cause we’re scared to see each other with somebody else”
Lesson: Selfishness is more of a crutch than a symbol of love. Yet, it’s still as hard to overcome.

8. Shot For Me

“She says I know you changed, I never see you
Cause you’re always busy doing things
I really wish she had a different way of viewing things
I think the city that we’re from just kinda ruined things
It’s such a small place: not much to do but talk and listen
The men are jealous and the women all in competition”
Lesson: There are many times in life when we feel that others have changed: they sometimes have. There are fewer times when we realize that maybe it’s us: we often have.
None of us ever want to admit it.

9. Crew Love

“And really, I think I like who I’m becoming
There’s times where I might do it just to do it
Like it’s nothing
There’s times when I might blow like 50k on a vacation
For all my soldiers just to see the looks on all they faces”
Lesson: Grow into yourself and don’t think twice about it; it’s a process and you’ll know when it’s right.

10. Marvin’s Room

“Having a hard time adjusting to fame
Sprite in that mixture, I’ve been talking crazy girl
I’m lucky that you picked up
Lucky that you stayed on
I need someone to put this weight on”
Lesson: If “adjusting to fame” is not easy, then it’s reasonable that others things aren’t, too. It makes sense that we’re all running in circles and turning ourselves into tornadoes.

11. Underground Kings

“Yeah I need that, making major changes to the life I’m living
I had no choice, I had to prove I made the right decision
That was back in the days, Acura days
I was a cold dude, I’m getting back to my ways”
Lesson: Other’s opinions don’t matter, but they help sometimes. Also, no shame in the Acura life.

12. Headlines

“Yeah, I be yelling out money over everything, money on my mind.
Then she wanna ask when it got so empty
Tell her I apologize it happened over time
She says they missed the old drake, girl don’t tempt me”
Lesson: Rather than see our limits, we try to convince ourselves that we have none. Avoid both extremes.

13. Houstalantavegas

“And she live in a mindset that I could never move to
Until you find yourself, it’s impossible to lose you”
Lesson: You can’t move forward when you’re wandering aimlessly. Explore and learn about who you are and what you want. What you need will follow.

14. Album: Nothing Was The Same

Lesson: Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?