The 100 Best Drake Songs

This is Drake in full-on turnup mode, drunk off whatever’s in his red cup and as loud and obnoxious as he wants to be. “Motherfuckers never loved us!” he chants over and over amid DJ Dahi’s glitchy trap masher. “Bitch, you betta have my money when I come for the shit like ODB!” But eventually, he yields to deeper feelings of being underappreciated, a frequent theme of his Nothing Was the Same era. “Who else making rap albums, doing numbers like it’s pop?” he asks while appropriating Mase’s flow from the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Mo Money, Mo Problems.”

This is one of those tracks that arguably makes 2015’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late his high point as a technically proficient bar-for-bar rapper. He sounds fluid and completely at ease as he rattles off lines about safe houses in Calabasas and getting boxes of free Jordans from Nike. “In the 6 cookin’ with the wrist motion,” he boasts confidently.

With producer T-Minus’ slurry, slow-windin’ rhythm, “She Will” approximates the late-night vibe of a strip club, with too many ballers lusting to touch the merchandise. It’s a seamy tone that Drake enhances with his chorus about women tempted to spend the night with a wealthy celebrity like himself. “She bad, so maybe she won’t, uh/But shit, then again, maybe she will/Yeah, do it for the realest fuckin’ niggas in the game right now.”

Opening with a reference from Too Short’s “Blow the Whistle,” “For Free” is Drake in funky horndog mode, lusting over women with “stomach on flat-flat/Booty like, “What’s that?” However, he’s careful to add that the sexcapades emerge from mutual consent, as well as a warning that it’s probably just an episode for him. “You knew what it was when you sign up,” he harmonizes. Sound inviting? Near the track’s end, DJ Khaled makes sure to stamp the affair with a signature boast: “We the best/OVO! The summer’s ours! It always has been.”

On “In My Feelings,” Drake sings and raps about past girlfriends, shouting them out by name over a bounce track made by TrapMoneyBenny and Blaqnmild. But this song really belongs to an uncredited appearance by Miami scam-rap queens City Girls, who show up midway through and dominate with sharp lines like “I need that black card and the code to the safe.”

Released in 2013 on the internet with a grungy, home-video-styled clip to boot, “5AM in Toronto” sounds like a synthwave track, thanks to keyboards by Nikhil Seetharam. The Allen Ritter, Seetharam, Vinylz, and Boi-1da-produced song finds Drake in a tempestuous mood, spitting a verse full of bars that have been interpreted as shots at the Weeknd, Chris Brown, and others. “’Cause I show love, never get the same outta niggas/Guess it’s funny how money can make change outta niggas,” he charges. Incidentally, he made up with the Weeknd and Brown, and scored a hit single with the latter, “No Guidance,” in 2019.

“Wait for U” may be a too-easy romantic ode to the ladies from two rap lotharios, but it works. Amid a sample of Tems’ “Higher” and a guitar-flecked beat from FnZ and ATL Jacob, the men unloose their feelings and emotions, albeit under intoxicated circumstances. “Every time I sip on codeine, I get vulnerable,” says Future. “I sit on my balcony and wonder how you’re feeling,” adds Drake. As Morris Day once sang, gigolos get lonely, too.

“It’s only been three years, look at how I’ve grown,” raps Drake on this deep cut from his third mixtape and commercial breakthrough. It finds him reflecting on growing fame as well as a sense of alienation from his fan base, and you can hear the distinctly Canadian accent in his voice. In 2020, longtime producer 40 told Kevin Durant’s The ETCs podcast that it’s one of his favorite Drake tracks. “Seeing the way people react to that song — how heart-wrenching that was, how much you felt what he was saying, that was so real,” he explained.

Thank Drake and producers Chase N Cashe and 40 for introducing a new generation of fans to Static Major, the R&B singer-songwriter who wrote hits for Aaliyah and others before passing away in 2008. They sampled a YouTube clip of Static Major riffing on the piano into this appealingly autobiographical track where Drake pays tribute to his mother and grandmother. “Just another kid going through life, worrying I won’t be accepted,” he remembers of his years before Lil Wayne discovered and signed him.

Released as part of a two-song EP, The Best in the World, celebrating the Toronto Raptors’ 2019 NBA championship, “Money in the Grave” finds Drake and Rozay at their most boastful, no more, no less. “I was on top when that shit meant a lot/Still on top like I’m scared of the drop,” raps Drake, referring to how he blew up when compact-disc sales were still a thing.

Named after the Toronto street on which Drake grew up, the Swto and 40-produced “Weston Road Flows” is one of his densest raps. He begins with memories of youth and a shout-out to childhood friend Renny, then segues to how he took his rivals’ spot on the charts (“You number one and I’m Eddie Murphy, we tradin’ places”), while dropping references to Canadian heroes like former Toronto Raptors star Vince Carter and R&B singer Glenn Lewis — all without a chorus.

Co-produced by Jamie xx and 40, “Take Care” sounds like an uptempo song by the former’s alt-pop group the xx, and Jamie relies heavily on a remix he made for Gil Scott-Heron’s “I’ll Take Care of You.” Meanwhile, Drake sings in a voice that sounds more strident and emphatic than his usual crooner delivery, while Rihanna sings the chorus in a low whisper, allowing herself to memorably crack off-rhythm at one point. The net effect is of tempering expectations and dealing with love realistically — a sleight of hand that fueled the song’s nightclub dominance through much of 2012.

“Rest in peace to Lil Keed,” says Drake on “Jimmy Cooks.” His pairing with 21 Savage hearkens back to their successful “Knife Talk” collaboration, thanks to a Playa Fly sample that transitions into a soulful, melodic beat centered on Brooke Benton’s “You Were Gone.” Each sound is animated by the other’s presence, with Drake boasting about how he’s “Cooking up ambition on the kitchen stove/Pot’s start to bubble, see the suds, that shit’s good to go.”

“We turned up in the studio, late night/That’s why the songs that you hear coming real tight,” raps Drake on “Who Do You Love?”; his unlicensed use of a line from Rappin’ 4-Tay’s Bay Area classic “Playaz Club” nearly led to a lawsuit. Nevertheless, it’s a sign that Drake’s a student of the genre, and he fits comfortably into the hard bass wallops of this Mustard-produced banger. “I’m big on the West, like I’m big in the South/So we gon’ pay some people off, we gon’ figure it out,” he raps.

“Find Your Love” finds Drake in full-on R&B mode, singing over a track produced by Kanye West, Jeff Bhasker, and No I.D. that replicates the sun-dappled island rhythms of Jamaican lover men like Gyptian and Jah Cure. He adds patois inflections to his delivery, and croons with sincerity, a marked shift in a genre more associated with hardcore sex come-ons than adult contemporary romance. “Find Your Love” underlines how Drake isn’t afraid to be viewed as soft, even as he shores up his rap bona fides elsewhere.

“Sicko Mode” is a citadel to Scott’s maximalist creativity. It includes over two dozen songwriters, six producers, three beat changes, and an uncredited vocal from Swae Lee, as well the sampled voices of the Notorious B.I.G., Big Hawk, and Luke Campbell. Still, Drake stands out amid the sensory overload. He gets two verses, and the opportunity to brag about taking half of a Xanax that leaves him “out like a light” on a private jet. “When I shoot my shot, that shit wetty like I’m Sheck,” he adds, shouting out Scott affiliate Sheck Wes in the process.

Built around a sample of Janet Jackson’s “Any Time, Any Place” and named after her 1994 movie, “Poetic Justice” takes the form of open letters to the opposite sex. Drake raps about how “sometimes I wish we would fight less and talk more,” while Lamar raps, “If you’re in the mood for empathy, there’s blood in my pen.” Both are in a contemplative mood and embrace romantic introspection, but Drake can’t help but get turned on when he imagines his girl in a sundress: “Wooh! Good god! What you doin’ that walk for?”

“Nonstop” finds Drake appropriating the ski-mask menace of classic Memphis rap with surprising success. The track’s elements work better in practice than on paper, from a grimy loop of Mack Daddy Ju’s “My Head Is Spinnin’” to fanciful claims that he’s a “wig splitter,” as well as the notorious and somewhat colorist line “Yeah, I’m light-skinned, but I’m still a dark nigga.” The tone is of a rap monarch with a “palace look like Buckingham” who’s willing to do anything to maintain his perch, and has unlimited amounts of money to do it.

Inspired by Michael Jordan’s famed Nike logo, “Jumpman” finds Drake and Future all the way turned up and flexing in the studio. Metro Boomin’s beat is bouncy enough, but it’s the energy the two bring that drives this hallmark to the sporting life forward. “Trapping is the life that’s the way for me-e!” raps Future, emphasis on the “me” as if he were whistling. Then he simply chants, “Nobu, Nobu, Nobu, Nobu, Nobu, Nobu.” Meanwhile, Drakes brags, “They just smell like two or three weeks out the country,” and gives shout outs to Manu Ginóbili and Dikembe Mutombo.

It’s unclear why Drake hasn’t had more success with his OVO imprint. He’s one of the biggest rap stars of the past decade-plus, but unlike J Cole’s Dreamville, he has yet to introduce an artist that has achieved significant success. The closest may be PartyNextDoor, a Canadian songwriter who scored a Grammy-nominated hit with “Come and See Me.” The track is redolent of the mid-2010s “trap-soul” era, with 40’s blurry production matching his deep, sonorous voice. Drake assists with a melodic verse, casting shade at another guy dating his woman: “Just ’cause he got a heart don’t mean he got heart.”

“Laugh Now Cry Later” exemplifies Drake’s songwriting talent and knack for melodic choruses. “Sometimes we laugh, and sometimes we cry, I guess you know now,” he sings, before taking a subliminal shot at Kanye West with a reference to the latter’s track “Ghost Town.” There are other impressive effects, including his repeat of the chorus several times as if it’s a mantra; and the way he concludes the Lil Durk line “Even though I got a case, I’ma do what it takes” by adding, “And I’ve never been embraced,” creating a sense of continuity between the two voices.

Here, Drake floats over a fast churnnig beat reminiscent of footwork, while managing to stay andbuoyant while the rhythm crashes and crests like waves beneath him. In the context of his first post-beef release, it feels like he’s dancing around the tension rather than being swallowed by it. Stunna Sandy shows up, her magnetic charisma giving the song a sharper edge and preventing it from becoming purely Drake’s stage show. “Glock got a Kick and a Twitch, make you n****s think I was a streamer,” she raps with an almost unfair level of sensual grit. — Jeff Ihaza

As the musical personification of Rihanna and Drake’s star-crossed romance, “Work” frames the latter as an object of desire, with Rihanna eager to give him more “work.” The Boi-1da production is a light and blissful reggae-pop affair, with Rihanna’s exuberant, patois-tinged vocal driving the sound forward. With all this love coming from the Barbadian star, Drake doesn’t have to do much else but sit there and be appreciated. “If you had a twin, I would still choose you,” he harmonizes. “We just need a face-to-face/You can pick the time and the place.”

Produced by Metro Boomin, “Where Ya At” is a marvel of trap drums, piano keyboards, and Future and Drake’s uncanny vocal chemistry. Future snaps with impressive rhythm, and Drake adds on with the verse “Where were you, when all the dogs needed help?/Lawyers and commissary ain’t gon’ pay itself.” The latter’s golden touch ensured it became Future’s first Billboard top 30 hit.

“Walk It Talk It” is a loving homage to Atlanta’s mid-aughts snap music era and groups like D4L and Dem Franchize Boyz. As with most things Migos, the play’s the thing, and the lyrics are less important than the cadence and hilarious ad-libs they adorn them with. Drake, who helped boost their breakout hit “Versace” in 2013, fits in well among the antics. “First night, she gon’ let me fuck ’cause we grown/I hit her, gave her back to the city, she home,” he raps, while Takeoff punctuates the stanza by ad-libbing “She at home now!”

With all that has happened to Drake, it’s easy to overlook the hit single that made him a star. Nestled amid So Far Gone, his 2009 mixtape that marked a peak in so-called “blog rap,” “Best I Ever Had” finds Drake perfecting the art of the humblebrag over a sprightly Boi-1da beat. “Sex, love, pain, baby I be on that Tank shit,” he raps in reference to the R&B singer’s album Sex, Love & Pain. It was difficult for rap heads to take him seriously at first — some refuseniks still don’t — and he’s only matured as an artist in the years since. But “Best I Ever Had” still resonates as a portrait of how far he’s come.

“I’m Spent” catches Drake in a vulnerable headspace, questioning his own longevity while refusing to drop the pose completely. The title is the thesis, the sense of being emptied out by expectation. Yet the song doesn’t fold into misery—it holds a strange poise, like he’s standing upright even while the weight increases. Loe Shimmy is the perfect foil, locking into a melodic pocket that makes the emotion feel real rather than scripted. What makes “I’m Spent” land is its restraint. It feels like a confession you’re not supposed to hear. The song is lonely, but never melodramatic. It’s driving hook “What if I go broke and don’t got no more racks to spend,” feels strangely poingnant. — Jeff Ihaza

The six-minute “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” is built on a distorted sample of Quadron’s “Pressure,” and finds Drake full of conflicting thoughts. After dropping the usual humblebrag lines, he pays homage to mentor Lil Wayne, and foretells his future as a single-dad. “And I sent her the child support, she sent the heart emoji/They all say they love me, but they hardly know me,” he raps before imagining dropping off his “little man” at school and how mothers will “get googly-eyed” during future parent-teacher meetings. Then he dismisses the whole idea of bragging anyway: “And being honest, I don’t even want to talk about it.”

Drake’s “Hold On, We’re Going Home” finds him collaborating with synth-pop duo Majid Jordan to dazzling results. It evokes the late Eighties, when bands inspired by Depeche Mode and New Order roamed the airwaves, and he adopts a pop-crooner mode he’s deployed many times before, but with more confidence and effectiveness than in the past. Drake has said that it’s his attempt at a making a timeless wedding song, with Majid Al Maskati singing on the chorus “You’re the girl, you’re the one.” To be sure, it’s a sentiment that won’t be found in much of Drake’s catalog, but it feels real here.

“Crew Love” mostly belongs to the Weeknd. He sings on more than half of the track, and he unfurls a glorious display of alternative-R&B angst over an airy, plush track from Illangelo and 40, making for one of his best early performances. “There’s a room full of niggas/What you followin’ me for?” he sings. The Weeknd’s vocals set the scene for Drake’s vision of a newly ascendant pop star enjoying the fruits of his labor. “Really, I like who I’m becoming,” brags Drake. “I told my story/And made history.”

“It bothers me when the gods get to actin’ like the broads,” raps Drake, taking aim at Common for dissing him in interviews (and being a little sexist in the process). He spits some of his most pointed lyrics on this track from Rick Ross’ Rich Forever mixtape as he reminisces about a time when rap music was “rugged” and claims that he rolls “heavy” with his friends. Drake’s verse also got him in real-life trouble. When he rapped, “Kobe ‘bout to lose 150Ms/Kobe my nigga, I hate it had to be him/Bitch, you wasn’t with me shootin’ in the gym,” Bryant’s wife Vanessa forced him to apologize.

“Make Them Pay” is Drake sharpening the knife with a smile on his face. It’s targeted, surgical, and meant to linger in the thoughts of its subjects. It’s the kind of subtle jabs that made Jay-Z so lethal in his prime, a not so coincidental quality to Drake’s raps here, given the subject matter. He floats, but he’s not floating aimlessly; the calm delivery is its own threat. If you’ve followed Drake long enough, you know he can turn a single cutting line into a news cycle, just as well as he can seemingly predict future ones (The eerie prescience of “Red Button,” from Scary Hours comes to mind), and this track feels engineered for that kind of resonance. You can hear him interrogating alliances, keeping score, and building a world where he stays undefeated by refusing to fight on anyone’s terms but his own. It’s petty but also deeply strategic.

Drake’s “One Dance” is arguably the song that introduced Afrobeats to the American pop mainstream — before then, pioneers like Wizkid had become a favorite of internet diggers but had yet to break through to a wider audience. However, the track also incorporates U.K. funky, courtesy of a pivotal sample of Kyla’s “Do You Mind,” as well as Jamaican dancehall flavors. It all makes for a defining moment in pop’s problematically titled “tropical” era, with Drake gamely abandoning his rap pose for a smooth, rhythmic croon that resonated worldwide.

Most radio stations that played this Drake loosie throughout the second half of 2014 focused on the “0 to 100” half. It’s a fusillade of memorable punchlines — “Chef Curry with the shot, boy,” “I be on my Lil Mouse drill shit,” “Run Forrest, run Forrest, go Forrest” — and memories about his days as a member of the Degrassi: The Next Generation ensemble. Meanwhile, “The Catch Up” is a much quieter conversation with a friend that finds him mulling, “Maybe I didn’t lose them at all/Maybe I keep moving forward and they’re stagnant/They ain’t moving at all.”

On “God’s Plan,” Drake struggles with feelings of alienation. “Trying to keep it peaceful is a struggle for me,” he admits. Memorably, he harmonizes at one point, “She said, ‘Do you love me,’ I tell her, ‘Only partly/I only love my bed and my momma, I’m sorry.’” Yet he eventually dispenses of his self-centeredness and says, “I can’t do this on my own,” all while toying with a newfangled Playboi Carti-inspired flow. The popular, award-winning video for “God’s Plan” found him doing charitable giving around the city of Miami, underlining the song’s theme of learning to embrace community.

“Die Trying” hits the sweet spot with its plucky guitar backbone and lyrics that walk that razor thin line between vulnerability and performance. Drake is resilient here, having just fended off The Avengers of hip-hop, but not invincible. You hear someone still fueled by ambition, but also aware of the cost. The choice to go left-field, into the pastures of pop-leaning guitar folk, Drake manages to strike an inventive chord, rather than looking like he’s trying to outrun stagnation. “Die Trying” is proof that Drake’s best moments are often the simplest. It’s the kind of track that reminds you why his fusion of melodic instinct and diaristic honesty became a blueprint in the first place.

“Passionfruit” displays Drake’s musical inspirations with aplomb. It’s a blurry mélange of alternative R&B, synth-pop, and deep house: early in the track, there’s a sampled snippet of house icon Moodymann exhorting his audience to get more drinks. At the center is Drake in crooner mode, but his romantic yearnings are less important than the sound he creates with British producer Nana Rogues. Amid it all, there’s the voice of Zoë Kravitz, who seems as bedazzled as the rest of us: “Trying to think of the right thing to say.”

“2 Hard 4 The Radio” is Drake doing his best regional rap impression, but sharper than usual. He plays with the West Coast/Bay-adjacent bounce and turns it into fuel, proof that he can embody regional styles without being a dreaded “colonizer.” The nod to Mac Dre, whose family Drake is close with, adds a real-world dimension as well. The track’s joy is in how effortless it feels; Drake sounds like he’s having fun again, which makes everything hit harder. — Jeff Ihaza

While Drake’s album with Future, What a Time to Believe, is a largely drama-less celebration of the self, he set aside its closing track to ruminate on his life. Despite its ESPN-inspired title, “30 for 30 Freestyle” is a vintage single-verse, confessional-style rap that balances braggadocio with doubts and reflections. A key moment arrives when he comments on how pundits wondered why he didn’t seem more engaged in the Black Lives Matter movement and the Ferguson, Missouri, protests over the death of Michael Brown. “Kids are losing lives, got me scared of losing mine/And if I hold my tongue about it, I get crucified,” he raps.

When onetime friend Meek Mill challenged Drake in 2015 with a diss track, the 6 God responded in days with a pair of singles, “Charged Up” and “Back to Back.” But his line on the latter — “I waited for four days, nigga, where y’all out?” — may be the biggest punch he landed, and it turned into a meme that haunted Meek for months. (Of course, this being Drake, it also landed on the Billboard Hot 100 as well.) The two eventually hashed out their differences and teamed up for “Going Bad” in 2018.

It’s difficult to separate “Hotline Bling” from the noise its success generated. There’s the music video and his dance moves, which generated memes that bounce around the internet to this day. And there’s the Grammy it received for Best Rap Song, prompting Drake to criticize the organization for citing a song on which he doesn’t even rap. All the controversy seems like a bit much for a heartbreak bop that finds him crooning over a loop of Timmy Thomas’ “Why Can’t We Live Together?” “You used to call me on my cellphone late night when you need my love,” he sings. “Ever since I left the city, you and I just don’t get along.”

The intro to “Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2” is one of Drake’s best, thanks to a beat that sounds like cloud skating, a blend of a high-pitched Ellie Goulding sample and Timbaland’s recital of Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” chorus. “Overly focused, it’s far from the time to rest now/Debates growin’ ‘bout who they think is the best now,” raps Drake before ceding the spotlight to Jay-Z. (“Pound Cake” originated as an outtake from Jay’s Magna Carta, Holy Grail.) The “Paris Morton Music 2” half belongs to Drake alone, as he says his time is now: “Fuck all that happy-to-be-here shit that you want me on/I’m the big homie, they still try to little-bro me, dog.”

A$AP Rocky’s “Fuckin’ Problems” captures a brief, heady moment between a new generation of rap superstars before ego and competitiveness drove them apart. Amid 2 Chainz’ chorus and a beat from producer 40 stuffed with bass and booty handclaps, each rapper delivers a dirty rap burner. “Drop down and get your eagle on/Or we can stare up at the stars and put the Beatles on,” raps Drake, who calls himself a “long dick nigga” that “ain’t for talkin’.” It’s the equivalent of Jay-Z, DMX, and Ja Rule’s Murder Inc., a star-crossed moment that couldn’t last.

“I’ve got enemies, got a lot of enemies/Got a lot of people tryna drain me of my energy,” begins Drake on this memorable three-minute rant. “Trying to take a-way from a nigga!” The objects of his frustration are everyone around him: current girlfriends and exes, family members, real and fake friends, and his peers in the world of rap. It’s both paranoid and humorous, and you can occasionally hear him crack a smile in his voice. Drake may have problems, but he never lacks for confidence. “I hear fairy tales ‘bout how they gon’ run up on me,” he ends. “Well, run up when you see me and we gonna see.”

“From Time” finds Drake in communion with Aiko, and she serves as his conscience. “I know you’ve been through more than most of us,” she sings, sympathetically. In turn, the rapper offers a brutally honest assessment of his masculine flaws, even as he controversially cites by name a few women he’s been involved with. (His tendency for name-dropping past dalliances without their consent has drawn criticism.) Importantly, he discusses resolving his differences with his father, whom he has described in past songs as exhibiting similar traits as him. It feels as if he’s searching for redemption, even if he’s not quite sure how to get there yet. “Landmark to the muses that inspired the music,” he raps. “Guess I fucked up the vision.”

Produced by T-Minus and famed for popularizing the phrase “YOLO,” “The Motto” is Drake’s homage to Bay Area hyphy. He shouts out Mac Dre’s “I’m Feeling Myself,” and hangs with local legends like E-40 in the music video. (The video version also includes a verse from then-Young Money artist Tyga.) Meanwhile, Lil Wayne uses the occasion to unfurl a few of his patented puns. “Wish a nigga would, like a tree in this bitch/And if a leaf falls, put some weed in that bitch/That’s my M.O., put a B in that bitch,” he raps.