Drake Would Like to Settle the Score

In 2009, after he had retired from his old career as a teen-age actor, and just as he was launching his new career as a grownup hip-hop star, Drake made a prediction: “When my album drop, bitches’ll buy it for the picture / And niggas’ll buy it, too, and claim they got it for they sister.” His verse betrayed lots of confidence about the magnitude of his growing popularity and also, perhaps, a few misgivings about the nature of it.