After being under the radar for a while, Drake comes back with not just one, but three new albums – Iceman, Habibti and Maid of Honour – releasing all the same night. 

At first, he had teased only one album release ever since 2024, that being Iceman, but on the night before the official release, Drake would be showing a livestream on YouTube. During this, we would finally see the reveal where he wasn’t just releasing Iceman, but two more surprise albums. 

As a long time Drake fan, I was very curious to see what he’s been working on, since his last solo album, For All The Dogs, released in 2023.

Unlike Iceman and Maid of Honour, Habibti had no previously released singles, which made me come into my first listening experience with no idea of how this album was going to sound.

After my first listen to Habibti, I honestly didn’t know how to react towards it. I felt like the album was in the middle, it wasn’t blowing me away, but it wasn’t bad. In a sense it was good, but it could’ve been way better.

My least favorite song is called “Rusty Intro.” The song has an acoustic guitar playing throughout the song, and his vocals weren’t saving the song at all since it sounded like he was using an unnecessary amount of autotune which made it sound awful. 

Honestly, when I listened to the song, I genuinely thought that my headphones were broken and not working, but it turns out that it was just the song. Randomly in the middle of the song there was a random speed up which made it sound even worse. The only redeeming quality of the song was that it was just a minute long, which saved me time from listening to it longer than I should have.

Thankfully the next song, “WNBA” turns it up a notch. The song starts off leaning into R&B with it being slower, but then it has a beat switch where Drake starts rapping instead of singing. The song mostly focuses on a distant relationship that keeps on drifting apart. “You keep goin’ away, Bahamas, MIA, made those plans today and the trips keep gettin’ longer, longer.”

The fourth song on this album is called “High Fives,” which is one of my favorite songs from this album. I really enjoy it when Drake doesn’t come in rapping too aggressively, which this song definitely is a nice mix of his singing and rapping abilities being merged together. This song started to tackle the problems of how he’s tired of all the mixed emotions coming from his fake friends. “I said, ‘I’m so loved and I’m so hated, so conflicted, I’m so jaded.’”

I was curious what the next song, “Hurr Nor Thurr” would sound like since it’s a collaboration with Sexyy Red, who I am not a fan of, but they previously did have a great and fun track called “Rich Baby Daddy.”

Honestly the song as a whole was a snoozefest, which both Drake and Sexyy Red are the reason for it. Sexy Red’s chorus had no energy to it, and anytime she sang on the song it felt so soulless and that she didn’t try at all. 

While Drake’s performance was better than hers, it’s definitely one of his worst performances, since it also felt like he didn’t try, since some of his vocals sounded like he was partially asleep.

Drake is known to always have a song or two on an album that is perfect for late night drives, and “White Bone” is no exception. 

This song leans more towards his R&B side, which I loved since his vocals were more melodic and smoother compared to the rest of the album. 

This song primarily talks about the complexity and exhaustion of his relationships. “Can I walk a straight line? Am I on a tightrope? Anchor you in my love, do I need a lifeboat?”

Following Drake’s and PARTYNEXTDOOR’s collaboration album that was released last year, I was surprised to see another collaboration so soon with the song “Fortworth.” 

This song is a slower R&B song that is quite soothing since the calm vocals and instrumental pair up perfectly for a soothing feeling. On this song, Drake reflects on his touring life and how he’s away from the people he loves. “I’m all alone in the United States of America, and who’s, who’s back at home takin’ care of ya?”

As a whole, this album was pretty good, but nothing amazing. Some songs on here I felt were amazing, while some songs just completely sucked and the rest didn’t stand out at all. That’s a big problem since I felt that as a whole the good barely even outweighed the bad.

Overall, I felt like he could’ve done better, but it was underwhelming. I would give this album a 6.5 out of 10 since it was pretty decent as a whole, but it was too inconsistent for me to put it any higher. I feel like the majority of his discography is better than this album, but it could’ve been worse.

ADG