You Don’t Hate Iceman , you love your Algorithm

​I know what you’re thinking. Another Drake Stan. But hear me out do you really hate Drake? Do you really hate Iceman? Let’s break down the word hate. Hate, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury”. This is when you have to ask yourself, does Iceman bring you fear? Does Iceman bring you anger? Do you think that iceman will cause injury to you? If any of these answers are no, then can you really hate iceman?

I would challenge that with maybe you feel strongly about Iceman or you flat out just don’t like it. Kanye West once said that art is supposed to make you feel something and that true failure in art is when an audience doesn't care. So by that definition alone you acknowledge that Iceman is art. It provoked emotion it caused action. It got your algorithm algorithmithing. It got you to care. 

Can I sit and say that Iceman is a classic. I don’t think so yet. Classics need to breathe. Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt wasn’t deemed a classic when it initially came out but people are still dissecting the bars on that album to this day. What I can say is that the more that I listen to the album, the more I realize it has great replay value and that’s one attribute of a classic album. I think what many people get wrong about artists is that, that them themselves have evolved and the artist that they heard has also evolved, so I don’t think Drake was lying when he said on the song Make Them Know, "that Drake from 2009 I don’t think we’ll be seeing him again." There are people who say that Drake hasn't evolved, but then in the same breath say, they miss the old Drake. To evolve is to change right? So how can you evolve but be the same person? I think it’s up to us as listeners to also evolve in seeing the person as who they’ve become, versus who we have met them as. It’s like anytime you see someone from high school, and you knew them as one thing, but in actuality they’ve grown to be so much more than this one thing that you knew them as.
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What more do you want? I think that’s one of the questions that I ask. A lot of the people who don’t like the album have this reoccurring criticism that it's not introspective enough, but I think from the very first song "Make Them Cry". Drake shows you how introspective he, and he even speaks on the harsh reality that no matter how deep he digs, they’ll always tell him to dig deeper, which I would say anyone who has listened to his music knows that he's always been introspective. But this one record talks about the things that he's going through in life, like his father battling cancer, or also realizing his uncle's bad decisions and with that the realization now that he’s in this place in his life that he can understand some of those choices. That's life. That's introspection.

But what about the bars? And then I think it comes to the bars, like a lot of people criticize Drake and kind of dismisses him for certain bars, mistakenly as surface level, but not realizing that these can be a technique to connect to deeper bars or more technical, more double entendre style, or even set ups for the larger couplet or quartet or of bars. "I swear I’m going looney over tune like that green martian." This one bar alone lets you know Drake's pen is still penning. That's not it though, The Internet is going crazy over all the bars in this album, but I also think that in itself is a marketing strategy. There’s this new marketing role called "clippers", these are Instagram pages, social media pages, and TikTok pages, that are incentivized to post content, sometimes 10 to 40 posts of the topic in order to go viral. Sometimes that's lyric breakdown, sometimes that's funny dances. But what makes this different is that not only do the content creator gets millions views, but they’re also monetarily incentivized to go viral so with each mill views on sites like Vyro and Clipify, and I believe that Iceman did use and benifit from this marketing strategy in order to kind of sidestep the normal music label promotion rollout. Especially since Drake is still in legal litigations against his label Universal. I think he had to come up with a more creative way, and since Drake is very much in tune with the social media age, this new style of clipping clippers is a way for him to not rely on the machine in order to push his album and market it without having to worry if the machine will do its thing, without having to rely on radio interviews and this big tour media circuit tour, which is what typically the artist's label sets up. An interesting perspective was also that Kendrick Lamar used the same strategy to push his albums and his singles, so this is essentially the new way of marketing. Sort of how influencers used to be the new marketing strategy, clippers are the new music marking strategy that even big named artists are using. And this makes sense, especially with the way that the Instagram algorithm has changed to suggest content that it thinks you would like more than the people you follow.

What you thinking? But let’s not forget the psychology behind this. The algorithm is what it thinks you like, the algorithm thinks you like Kendrick Lamar more, then it’s going to push Kendrick Lamar and reviews and more Drake hate. And in the same vein, if you like Drake more it will push more Drake music and more Kendrick Lamar hate. The psychology behind that like I said the algorithm is more Content based so it’s suggesting things it thinks you’re interested in it. Also the psychology of the content creators that know that hate gets more eyes and likes, meaning that making a video about something you hate or saying something in a very hateful way is more likely to stir up more emotion more comments, and more interaction than just, talking about things you like. This is sometimes called ragebaiting or click baiting for views. I've seen social media influences at times use ragebaiting to get views where in one since they totally bash Drake and all the music he’s made, but then a couple months down their feed you can see them saying they love his song or they even have one of his songs playing in the background, but as you follow these social media influencers you realize that it's not, that they’re not necessarily in the business to love or hate, they’re in the business to get views. and getting views sometimes mean using psychology, tricks that include ragebaiting and Click baiting. 

​Is this really your opinion? Big K.R.I.T. had a skit on his album Cadillactica called “Classic Interlude” where two men are talking about an album that just got released. The main guy asked the other guy has he heard this new album, and his friend says immediately that the album is a classic. But it's with this one friend's opinion that the main guy agrees. Until he then goes on to talk to a female friend where the same question comes up. This time he answers and says that the album is a classic, however she replies that she wasn't feeling it, and that it was wack. This causes him to again change his opinion and says you know what, you're right, it was wack! Sometimes we’re so quick to be in agreements that we don’t even haven't even formulated our own opinion, which then also causes us to not be confident enough to take a stance on a subject. Right or Wrong, people are more respected for taking a stance instead of being fickle. This kind of goes back to school and how we used to have to write book reports. You started with your thesis statement, and the rest of the report was were you added your supporting sentences or paragraphs to show that you actually have research to back up your theory. I say we do that with albums.

Lastly, it takes too much effort to get away from the album. Iceman has already lived rent-free in your head and your algorithm. Go outside and you’ll most likely hear it also. The radio and the clubs are playing the album. Social media is going crazy with it as background music. Even your favorite brunch spot probably has Drake on in rotation. To get away from the album you literally have to stay inside the house. Not impossible, but it’s probably a miserable experience. If it’s music, just let it be music. Use that energy for good.

My suggestion. Give the album a chance, go into a room where there are no distractions.  Don’t try to turn on your phone and record. Or have some reaction video. Don't even listen to the album with a friend. But do bring a blank piece of paper and ask yourself after every track. How do you feel? How did this music make you feel? Did you remember the hook? Was there a catchy part? What didn’t you like about a particular song? How is the arrangement of songs? if you can articulate those things, then I think you have an adequate opinion on whether you like it or not.

Let us know your thoughts on Iceman!