Dear Drake…”Take Care” of Your Fan’s Emotions

Dear Drake –

At first, I wanted to write you to say thank you (it’s later, right? I’m guessing you expected gratitude once you released the followup to your debut album, Thank Me Later.)

You see, your music has been heavily featured in the soundtrack to my recent life. Whether it was 2009’s “Best I Ever Had” (which, by the way, turns out is only temporary and should be renamed “Best I Ever Had…Until I Change My Mind”) or tracks like “Make Me Proud” feat. Nicki Minaj and “Take Care” feat. Rihanna off your latest album, I’ve always felt like you were telling me exactly what I needed to hear… especially with the song “Take Care.”

Let’s look at a few of the lyrics:

I know you’ve been hurt
By someone else
I can tell by the way
You carry yourself
But if you’ll let me
Here’s what I’ll do
I’ll take care of you

Wow. OK it’s not the most lyrically complex or deep but still…Makes your heart skip a beat, right? At least, anyone who’s been broken because of someone else’s actions can relate. 

Of course the song is enhanced with the Drake-esque lines & rhymes that paint the picture of the story of the girl and the pain and… your role of patient superhero. Creates a fairytale romance that could liken it to hip-hop’s equivalent of a Taylor Swift song (which by default, becomes a song I’m obsessed with.)

However. This picture-perfect fairytale perception of Drake, the “knight in shining armor,” came crashing down yesterday, when my dear friend Carmen told me that “Take Care” was NOT your original.

Yep. “Take Care” is indeed…sampled (which of course you know because, well, it’s “your” song.)

Look, I understand that the hip-hop industry samples all the time. But there was something about this song, the weight I put on it, the value it held, the way I truly believed in all things you said and the way you just understood pain and emotion and yeah… to discover that a guy named Mark Lanegan is the one I should be swooning over is just disheartening (especially since that can’t happen. I google image searched him… he’s not my type.)*

So, I’ve sadly discovered you’re kind of a fraud. You cheated me. I don’t even know what’s real and what’s fake anymore. Heck, I may as well call you Aubrey (your REAL name) at this point….it might be all the truth I have left to hold on to.

-Samia

 

PS for readers who are interested, the Mark Lanegan version is below, followed with Drake’s version below that.

*Update: I was later informed, after writing this article, that someone entirely different, not Mark Lanegan, came up with it. So I failed as a former journalist in doing thorough research. But the disappointment still applies.

[youtube id=”lzWa8QdJ8-E” width=”600″ height=”350″]

[youtube id=”spRbS3f0NE4″ width=”600″ height=”350″]