{"id":53170,"date":"2025-07-10T04:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T04:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/53170\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T04:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T04:19:08","slug":"what-did-i-miss-wireless-narrative-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/53170\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat Did I Miss,\u201d Wireless & Narrative Control"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Listen, brother, there was a time when Drake<\/a>\u2019s success felt organic. Like, as much as we could overlook how he supposedly signed one of the biggest record deals<\/a> in music industry history, it felt like people actually still cared. His haters still bopped to his songs, his fans remained adamant that he couldn\u2019t fall, and everyone else couldn\u2019t escape his presence in pop culture. An Instagram comment could garner as much attention as a new feature. The OVO brand remained a fixture in casual streetwear. The gossip and rumors, no matter how bad, only added to his image. There was something magical about Drake\u2019s reign\u2014not just before the whole feud with Kendrick<\/a> but even before he went on a spree of releasing rather subpar bodies of work, Certified Lover Boy included.<\/p>\n

But the past year and some change has seen Drake acting like the biggest baby of them all. His lawsuit against UMG alleged they allowed Kendrick Lamar to defame him on the Diamond-eligible \u201cNot Like Us<\/a>\u201d\u2014a song that stayed on the charts for nearly a year, earned several Grammys, and was performed on the Super Bowl stage. As much as Drake violated yet another cardinal rule of hip-hop, his frustration is understandable. After all, how do you make that much money for one label, only for them to let someone go scorched earth on your name, and not just let it happen, but let it interfere with your operations? You can\u2019t say Kendrick cooked him and act like there wasn\u2019t collateral damage.<\/p>\n

The unfortunate part about all of this is that Drake, like every other artist, still needs to work to feed the mouths he employs\u2014and the one he brought into this Earth. The loyalty of those who\u2019ve stood by him has been rewarded (with his loyalty? who knows), and those who\u2019ve turned on him are now the muses to what he\u2019s trying to make into his most anticipated release\u2014Iceman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Friday night, Drake cosplayed as a working-class man in the streets of Toronto, driving a truck with his album title on it while debuting brand-new music. The main takeaway was the song \u201cWhat Did I Miss<\/a>,\u201d premiering alongside a new set of visuals that sees Drake rapping next to a pool with a bunch of guns scattered beside it. Another shot shows him measuring out a block of ice, which many presume is a shot at Kendrick\u2014even if it is, Dot performed two sold-out shows in Toronto<\/a> without anything happening to him. With heavy police presence and an apparent private flight in and out of the country on both nights (allegedly), the Grand National Tour went down without a hitch. The city felt so safe that night that Mustard got to enjoy New Ho King’s signature fried rice without anyone trying to pump his chain. And frankly, in the rankings of who would\u2019ve gotten robbed that night by a rabid Drake supporter (or Top5<\/a>), Mustard had a higher risk probability than SZA or Kendrick Lamar.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, \u201cWhat Did I Miss\u201d also seemingly addresses LeBron James, DeMar DeRozan, and Rick Ross<\/a>\u2014each of whom has landed on Drake\u2019s opp list in one way or another.<\/p>\n

You might think that entire tangent is beside the point, but it\u2019s the exact point: if vengeance is the game, then who will be the victim of Drake\u2019s retribution? The music industry is transactional; you scratch my back, I scratch yours, etc. And yet, Drake doesn\u2019t seem to realize that the industry is not only transactional but fickle, too. 2 Chainz<\/a> recently told<\/a> Shannon Sharpe he stopped didn’t like doing swaps with other rappers because, at a certain point, the value dwindles. And if we\u2019re being honest, Drake has similarly faced allegations of aligning himself with certain artists due to their own success, only to abandon ship when they aren’t as hot anymore. So how could he actually be mad\u2014or at least vocalize his anger\u2014when he\u2019s been accused of treating others the same way he feels he’s being treated now?<\/p>\n

For an artist who\u2019s spent the better part of the past decade and a half evolving his sound, \u201cWhat Did I Miss\u201d sounds as much like a cookie-cutter Drake song as anything else he\u2019s released. The beat\u2019s cool, but it\u2019s not groundbreaking. The bars feel as vindictive as anything he\u2019s dropped in the past five years. Betrayal doesn\u2019t sound painful anymore\u2014it just sounds like another part of life that Drake romanticizes because it fuels a beef that\u2019s been over for a while.<\/p>\n

But this new chapter of Drake\u2019s career feels like something out of the Twilight Zone, honestly. For an artist whose brand was once tied to exclusivity and scarcity, there\u2019s been a much more transparent effort to propel himself back to the top of the charts\u2014or at least regain the trust of those who wrote him off after the tragedy that was \u201cThe Heart Pt. 6.\u201d That only reinforces many of the criticisms levied against Drake throughout his career. For someone who\u2019s constantly faced culture vulture allegations, it hasn\u2019t helped that he\u2019s aligned himself with streamers who have little investment in hip-hop culture beyond exploiting it for clout\u2014which makes his upcoming Wireless Festival<\/a> performances (and the proposed streamer fly-outs<\/a>) feel more performative than a homecoming to a country that\u2019s historically embraced him.<\/p>\n

Still, considering that he\u2019s on the outs with UMG, it\u2019s a \u201cby any means necessary\u201d type of approach to ensure maximum impact. That means bypassing traditional media outlets\u2014something he\u2019s proven he can do\u2014and fully embracing the next generation of content creators. That\u2019s fine. But when you\u2019re inching toward 40 and rapping about how your therapist gave a 30-day notice because you \u201ckeep on talkin\u2019 \u2019bout beefin\u2019 and business and money and women\u201d and there\u2019s \u201cno diagnosis,\u201d maybe the issue is a lack of growth. And trying to fit in with Gen Z\u2014especially after a year where the world branded you a pedophile\u2014feels like a setup for failure.<\/p>\n

Still, the launch of the Iceman campaign last weekend paves the way for what he\u2019s clearly trying to frame as a summer takeover. Whether \u201cWhat Did I Miss\u201d turns into a hit will be determined over time\u2014but if we\u2019re being honest, it does slap for what it is. This is supposed to be the fiery intro that sets the stage for his three-day residency at Wireless Festival. On the first night, he\u2019ll share the stage with his $ome $exy $ongs 4 U collaborator PARTYNEXTDOOR and Summer Walker<\/a>\u2013an homage to his R&B roots. Night two will reunite Drizzy with Boy Better Know (Skepta\u2019s crew, for the uncultured), and night three will include the long-awaited return of Vybz Kartel<\/a> alongside Burna Boy, Popcaan, and other dancehall artists. Basically, this could be the platform where Drake finally compartmentalizes his versatility across three nights with some cohesion\u2014something that\u2019s been sorely missed in his recent output, Honestly, Nevermind being a rare exception.<\/p>\n

The stakes have never been higher in Drake\u2019s career. Iceman won\u2019t flop by any real standard\u2014except his own\u2014if it fails to deliver the kind of commercial dominance he once took for granted. But the cards are in the deck. New music will likely be debuted at Wireless. And if it sticks, then maybe Drake\u2019s not in such a bad spot after all. If Iceman succeeds, especially without the machine behind him, it won\u2019t be because he proved his critics wrong\u2014it\u2019ll be because he finally evolved beyond needing to. From the sounds of \u201cWhat Did I Miss,\u201d that doesn\u2019t quite seem to be the case. But first singles don\u2019t always tell the full story. Still, if Iceman can\u2019t carry more than just the anxiety surrounding its release, then even Drake\u2019s biggest wins will keep sounding like losses in disguise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen, brother, there was a time when Drake\u2019s success felt organic. Like, as much as we could overlook…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[39585,4662,39586,171,3095,32091,975,67,132,68,32093,39587],"class_list":{"0":"post-53170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-album-rollout","9":"tag-drake","10":"tag-drake-what-did-i-miss","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-features","13":"tag-iceman","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-what-did-i-miss","19":"tag-wireless-fest"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114827019128097558","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}