About

— The Analog Vault // Essential Listening —

Originally released in 2011, Take Care marked a defining moment in Drake’s evolution from rising star to generational voice. The album blends hip-hop, R&B, and ambient pop into a moody, introspective soundscape shaped by emotional candour and late-night atmosphere.

Songs like “Marvins Room,” “Cameras,” and the title track “Take Care” explore vulnerability, isolation, and ambition with unguarded honesty. Production from Noah “40” Shebib gives the record its signature haze, allowing space and silence to carry as much weight as lyrics. Take Care reshaped the emotional vocabulary of mainstream rap, influencing a decade of artists who followed. — The Analog Vault

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After the huge commercial and artistic success of his last album, Thank Me Later, Drake threatened/promised that his next album would be a straight-up R&B record that forsook rapping for vocals. The plan fell through, but his 2011 album Take Care has the feel of a late-night R&B album, full of slow tempos, muted textures, impassioned crooning, and an introspective tone that is only rarely punctured by aggressive tracks, boasts, and/or come-ons. 

For the most part, increased success hasn’t done much to improve Drake’s mood, as he details his failures at love, his worries about living a hollow life, and his general malaise. Drake’s longtime producer/partner Noah “40” Shebib did most of the production work, and he surrounds Drake’s voice with murky beats, layers of dusky synths, and moody guitars that fit Drake’s voice perfectly; the two work together to create a thick mood of melancholy. When other producers take over, there is a definite shift in mood. 

Boi-1DA gives “Headlines” a jaunty synth line that Drake matches with his strongest rap, T-Minus brings some booty bass to the thoughtfully sexy Nicky Minaj feature “Make Me Proud,” Just Blaze builds “Lord Knows” around some majestic samples that let Drake brag like a boss, and Chase N. Cashe take things one step further toward R&B by creating a late-night after-hours club feel on the bittersweet “Look What You’ve Done” (which features a phone message left for Drake by his grandmother). The album's most unique track, “Take Care,” features Jamie Smith of the xx working with Shebib on an (almost) uptempo, (almost) danceable song that has a typically great vocal from Rihanna. 

The super-moody collaboration with the Weeknd on “Crew Love” is another highlight, though it does point out the problematic fact that the Weeknd beats Drake out in the vocal department. The collabo with the predictably brilliant André 3000 and Lil Wayne also point out Drake’s shortcomings as a rapper. Though he drops the occasional line that dazzles (“All my exes live in Texas like I’m George Strait”), Drake is a middle-of-the-pack rapper at best. 

His true strength, as Take Care proves over and over, is his willingness to delve deeply into his emotions and the ability to transmit them in such a simple and real fashion that it’s easy to connect with him even if your life isn’t filled with glamorous exes, hangs with Stevie Wonder (who adds some harmonica to “Doing It Wrong”), and gold owls. It’s an important achievement, and his success might mean that the world was ready for the first emo rapper. Thank Me Later hinted at it, but Take Care makes it plain. 

And while Take Care's charms may be a little more hidden, with a couple exceptions, than Thank Me Later’s were, repeated plays reveal a record that is just as strong and more powerful emotionally. Don’t play it at your next house party or DJ night; save it for later when you need something to get you through the rest of the night. — (via AllMusic)
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With his penchant for poetic over-sharing, Drake is an apt avatar for the era of reality television and 24-hour self-documentation. Backed by lush and moody beats, Take Care finds him putting his talents to use on his strongest set of songs so far.

In this age of reality television, 24-hour celebrity news, and second-to-second documentation-- where behind-the-scenes sagas mix with what's on screen and on record, creating an ever-morphing, ever-more-self-aware new normal-- Drake is an apt avatar. Naturally, he knows this, too. "They take the greats from the past and compare us/ I wonder if they'd ever survive in this era," he contemplates on the album, "In a time where it's recreation/ To pull all your skeletons out the closet like Halloween decorations." 

This time around, Drake has a better grasp on his own notoriety and the mind-fucks that come with it. While he expressed wonderfully wounded trepidations about his sudden rise on Thank Me Later, he's learning to embrace it more here. "They say more money more problems, my nigga, don't believe it," he raps on closer "The Ride". "I mean, sure, there's some bills and taxes I'm still evading/ But I blew six million on myself, and I feel amazing." And on "HYFR (Hell Ya Fucking Right)", he all but gives away his hand, turning his sadness into strategy: "What have I learned since getting richer?/ I learned working with the negatives could make for better pictures." And while he claims "I think I like who I'm becoming" on "Crew Love"-- about as ringing an endorsement you'll get from a guy so bent on exposing his own disappointments-- he's still more interested in contradiction than triumph. Even when staring at a pair of unnatural breasts, he highlights the incision rather than the size: "Brand new girl and she still growing/ Brand new titties, stitches still showing/ Yeah, and she just praying that it heals good/ I'm 'bout to fuck and I'm just praying that it feels good."

Just as his thematic concerns have become richer, so has the music backing them up. Thank Me Later banked on a sonic tableau that was slow and sensual and dark-- equal parts Aaliyah and the xx-- and Take Care takes that aesthetic to an even more rewarding place, spearheaded by Drake's go-to producer Noah "40" Shebib, who gets a writing and production credit on almost every song. While the bombastic style of producer Lex Luger's work with Rick Ross and Waka Flocka Flame threatened to turn the tide on Drake and 40's moody atmospherics last summer, the pair stick to their gut here and delve further into smooth piano and muffled drums, fully committed to the idea of doing more with less.

Drake's worked on his own technical abilities, too, and both his rapping and singing are better than ever here. Notably, he only brandishes the hashtag flow he quickly became famous (or infamous) for over the last few years, turning it into a knowing knock on copycats: "Man, all of your flows bore me/ Paint drying." And he breathlessly runs through the opening verse on the vicious "HYFR" at a speed that would likely garner respect from Busta Rhymes. And then there's "Doing It Wrong", a brilliant, barely there slow jam that borrows some lyrics from an unlikely source (Don "American Pie" McLean's twangy 1977 track "The Wrong Thing to Do") and features an unlikely guest in Stevie Wonder.

The cover of Take Care shows its star sitting at a table, dejected and surrounded by gold, like a hip-hop Midas. Considering some of the money-doesn't-buy-you-happiness sentiments inside, the picture is apropos enough. But it's much too obvious to truly represent what Drake and his crew have done here. A better image would be the grainy, amateur photo he released with "Marvins Room" when he originally leaked it in June, which shows the rapper walking away from a group of private jets, his face obscured by a puff of smoke making its way up to an overcast sky. It lets his reality do the heavy lifting while Drake stands by, taking it all in. — (via Pitchfork)

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If you don’t consider Nothing Was The Same as Drake’s best album, it it highly likely that you consider Take Care his best. This is a valid opinion as this album put Drake in a different stratosphere in the hip-hop/r&b world. Take Care is legendary in almost every aspect — from the cover art, to the features and production, and the amount of all time great songs it has. It is a classic in every way. This album is largely emotional and showcases the versatility of the artist by seamlessly flowing between singing and rapping — his trademark symbol of greatness. — (via Medium)

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Reissued on 2LP regular black vinyl

The first word of the title track 'Take Care' is missing on the back of the cover.

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Label: Young Money / Cash Money Records / Universal Republic
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue
Reissued: 2021 / Originally Released: 2011
Genre: Hip Hop, Funk / Soul
Style: Contemporary R&B, Pop Rap, Male Vocals

File under: TAV Essential Listening
File under: Contemporary R&B
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