Certified Lover Boy: 86 Minutes of Comfortable, Not Hungry

Certified Lover Boy is Drake’s sixth studio album, a 21-track, 86-minute release that arrived in 2021 promising scale. The title suggests intimacy and swagger in equal measure, and the record tries to deliver both across a run time built for streaming numbers rather than tight sequencing. It is less an argument for growth than a victory lap, stacked with guest verses, R&B hooks and drill flourishes meant to cover every base at once.

Champagne Poetry Sets the Tone

The opener runs 5:36 and samples freely, shifting tempo halfway through to show off Drake’s ear for production more than his pen. It is one of the tracks critics singled out, and it works as a mission statement: long, layered, unhurried.

Papi’s Home Through In the Bible

“Papi’s Home,” “Girls Want Girls” and “In the Bible” follow in quick succession, each under five minutes and each content to coast on a hook. “Girls Want Girls” made the list of tracks critics singled out, proof that a strong beat can outrun a weak bar.

Fair Trade Carries the Middle

“Love All” and “Fair Trade” sit back to back, and “Fair Trade” is the sharper of the two, tightening the album’s midsection with a hook built for radio. “Way 2 Sexy,” at 4:17, is the record’s biggest swing for the dance floor, all bounce and repetition, built to be inescapable rather than memorable.

TSU to Knife Talk

This stretch — “TSU,” “N 2 Deep,” “Pipe Down,” “Yebba’s Heartbreak,” “No Friends in the Industry,” “Knife Talk” — is where the album’s length starts to show. Some of it works:

• “No Friends in the Industry” lands as one of the sharper tracks, mentioned by name among the album’s highlights
• “Yebba’s Heartbreak,” at 2:13, is the shortest cut here and one of the few moments of restraint
• “Knife Talk” pushes past four minutes on menace alone, competent but familiar

Nothing in this run surprises. It is professional, well-produced, and largely interchangeable.

7am on Bridle Path

At 3:59, this is the album’s clearest standout, a track critics repeatedly named as evidence Drake can still write with edge when he chooses to. “Race My Mind” follows and cannot match it, settling into the same mid-tempo drift that defines much of the record’s second half.

Fountains Through IMY2

“Fountains,” “Get Along Better,” “You Only Live Twice” and “IMY2” round out the back stretch. “You Only Live Twice” is the one that holds attention, another track singled out for its guest chemistry and sharper writing. The rest blur together, pleasant but forgettable, the sound of an album that has already made its point and keeps talking anyway.

The Remorse and F*g Fans

The closing pair, “F*g Fans” and “The Remorse,” bring the album home at just under ten minutes combined, with “The Remorse” stretching to 5:51 as a slow, deliberate finish. Neither track changes the record’s trajectory. Both are competent closers to an album that never needed to be this long.

86 Minutes, One Verdict

Metacritic put this album at 60 out of 100. Pitchfork scored it 6.6 out of 10. RapReviews.com called it “beige, hollow music” and said “it doesn’t make sense why it’s so damn popular.” The A.V. Club found “nothing groundbreaking here.” The Los Angeles Times pushed back, writing that the album is “so sharply composed and performed as to be largely irresistible,” even setting aside its more troubling lyrical moments.

Both readings are true at once. Certified Lover Boy is polished, catchy in stretches, and far too long for its own ambitions. Champagne Poetry, Fair Trade, 7am on Bridle Path, Girls Want Girls, You Only Live Twice and No Friends in the Industry justify the run time. The other fifteen tracks do not. This is a well-made album with no urgency behind it, comfortable rather than hungry.

2021 albums · album review · Certified Lover Boy · Drake · hip-hop · rap