“Release Date Inside.”

Drake posted a block of ice to Instagram with this caption earlier this spring. By the time fans descended on a downtown Toronto parking lot with pickaxes and blowtorches to crack the sculpture open, it was clear that the “ICEMAN” campaign had transcended a typical album rollout. 

The release date inside was May 15, but on that fateful day, Drake didn’t just drop “ICEMAN.” To the surprise of fans around the world, he dropped three projects on the same night: “ICEMAN,” the rap-forward centerpiece; “HABIBTI,” closer to vintage R&B Drake; and “Maid of Honour,” the club hits piece. Although Drake released 43 tracks in one night, this review will focus on ICEMAN, my personal favorite of the three albums.

The first song on the album “Make Them Cry” is one of my favorite Drake intros to date. It features a soulful vocal sample that melts into a hard-hitting beat, which increases tempo in the latter half. In this song, Drake explores some of the most personal topics he’s covered in years: his father’s cancer, his since-dismissed lawsuit against his label UMG and the fallout from his 2024 rap battle with Kendrick Lamar. That feud, the most explosive rivalry in recent hip-hop history, left Drake feeling abandoned as friends, collaborators and longtime fans turned on him. To me, it seems like “ICEMAN” is his attempt to process that betrayal. 

The opening track blends seamlessly into “Dust,” which opens with the classic Drake move: talking to himself for thirty seconds before the beat kicks in, and the track continues the introspective tone with powerful storytelling. I love the catchy “blow the dust off your plaques” refrain as it is a clever flip of the song’s title and suggests that while his rival’s achievements are gathering dust, he’s still very much in his prime. It’s the kind of line that’s stuck in your head for hours. 

Since my Spotify account was glitching due to the large amount of plays on the album, I listened to the next track “Whisper My Name” on YouTube. I highly recommend you to do the same, because on YouTube, the song starts with a feature from an animated video from a short film called “Jack Frost” that blends beautifully into the song. This transition made me stop in my tracks while writing this review. “Whisper My Name” gives the album early momentum with its moody production. It changes the mood of the album early, from an album that’s introspective to a more dramatic comeback moment.

“Janice STFU” continues the moody production and grew to be my favorite track on the album. The sample is hypnotic and goes perfectly with the rest of the song. Drake’s vocals are truly emotional, and I keep coming back to this song. Every listen I catch a new layer in the writing or a choice I missed the first time around. Every element just clicks, from the sample to the flow, the lyrics, and the delivery, without a weak moment throughout the entire song. 

It’s a shame that what follows is “Ran to Atlanta,” featuring artists Molly Santana and Future. This song is heavily over-produced, as it starts with synth-heavy drumbeats but then shifts to moody synth, and then slower, introspective moments that never actually land. Although Future’s verse on the song was mediocre, Molly Santana’s vocal energy and delivery meshed perfectly with the darker production. She provided the needed personality to effectively switch up the track’s dynamic, but not enough to save the entire song. 

Then comes “Make Them Remember,”  which Billboard ranks as the best song on the album. I can see it, because at nearly five and a half minutes, it’s the longest track on “ICEMAN,” and Drake uses every second. The rhyme schemes (“bills on their face, ducking Drake”) are extremely layered and clever, some of the densest rapping he’s done in years. It also contains some vicious shots at celebrities who didn’t support him during his public feud with Kendrick Lamar, most notably LeBron James, whose jersey number is 23: “Please stop askin’ about what’s goin’ on with 23 and me.”

The ICEMAN rollout was one of the most ambitious campaigns of the streaming era, escalating from iced-out courtside seats at the Raptors’ Scotiabank Arena to an ice block sculpture in a downtown Toronto parking lot, explosions lighting up Downsview Park, culminating with Drake projection-mapping the CN Tower in icy-blue visuals while fireworks lit up the waterfront below as ICEMAN, HABIBTI, and Maid of Honour dropped simultaneously. Honestly, I loved the buildup, but the problem with generating so much hype is that almost nothing can live up to it, but ICEMAN mostly does. 

Commercially, “ICEMAN” freezes the competition. The trilogy debuted at No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 on the Billboard 200, a feat no artist had ever pulled off, while “Janice STFU” topped the Hot 100, handing Drake his 14th No.1 and passing Michael Jackson for the most by a male solo artist in history. 

In a nutshell, I see “ICEMAN” as a record about legacy, betrayal and proving the haters wrong, and one that, commercially at least, did exactly that. Certain songs, namely “Make Them Cry,” “Whisper My Name,” “Janice STFU,” “Make Them Pay,” “Make Them Remember,” sound fantastic to me. But I also think he couldn’t decide which songs to cut, as proven by some of the weaker tracks on the album. “ICEMAN” may not be Drake’s coldest album, but it is the one that froze his legacy in place.

Favorite track: Janice STFU

Overall rating: 4/5