The increase we see in 2017 is likely due to More Life being a compilation mixtape that featured many different artists. The result here is a bit unclear, but I would argue there is a slight negative trend from 2013 onwards. To measure this, I used unique word count as the metric to gauge creativity and effort in song writing (influenced by this article on rappers’ vocabulary, and this Machine Learning NLP article on Drake). (Note: the edge of the box represent 1st and 3rd quartile, middle line is the median and whiskers represent min and max, all diamonds are considered outliers)Īs his songs and overall brand became more mainstream, I wanted to explore how this affected his lyricism as a rapper. These do not include any songs where he was featured on another artist’s song. The final dataset includes 162 Drake songs found on Spotify. (For further information and examples, please refer to this article )Īdditional lyrical data was web-scraped using a python package created by johnwmillr leveraging the web API of popular lyrics website, Genius. Values between 0.33 and 0.66 describe tracks that may contain both music and speech, either in sections or layered, including such cases as rap music.
In an industry full of one-hit wonders and ch anging fads, what has allowed this former teen-drama actor to stay atop the game? The answer is versatility. In the decade since his critically acclaimed mixtape, So Far Gone, Drake has released 7 solo projects and 1 joint mixtape on his way to becoming the most streamed artist of all time. The Canadian rapper-singer dominates both the pop charts and internet meme culture.
Aubrey “ Drake” Graham is one of today’s biggest music superstars.