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First off, Drake is a Canadian icon and one of the most successful rappers ever. His rise to fame was cemented by his invention of the OVOXO genre. From there, Drake has made countless radio hits and memorable viral tracks. In a couple years, his talent will resurface because the attention span of the internet is really small.
The Kendrick diss battle started like a cypher and ended like a lawsuit. The only reason that was a KO to Drake's momentum was because his current music is 99.99% fueled by hip hop culture rather than artistic talent. I don't mean he's not making good music, it's just not as good as the music that made him famous.
Drake's secret weapon is his pull with females. If he could maintain a serious relationship like Kim and Kanye, he'd be helping hip hop culture heal from indoctrination while reminding the culture why they put him on initially.
Justin Bieber was a meteoric pop artist and one of the first artists to be discovered from the internet. However, with Scooter Braun's help, Justin made a persona and discography that was original and impressively optimized to the taste of the entire female gender. Justin has gone through many transformations both internally and externally, but what's been consistent is his social finesse. Swag 2 is a very excellent album if not a little too long. Justin Bieber is a source of pride to his audience and his name is synonymous to pop music. The one problem is for love songs, he doesn't seem the most sincere. Maybe it's just his media presence, but for a 44 track album, the song about eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden raises questions.
Earl Sweatshirt was one of the pioneers of indie rap culture as the prolific secret weapon of the "Odd Future" music collective. He had humble beginnings and managed to scale up hipster culture organically. However, the transition to adulthood was hard for Odd Future. Live Laugh Love is about that struggle to maintain approval from a world that is highly hypocritical and not always looking out for people that look like Earl. Making music that aligns with the lifestyle of some of his audience while trying to align with the rest of his audience is very clear in the lyrics. It's a lot of apologizing and justifying. Off-beat rap has gone from a joke to a defiant stance, but Earl's talented enough to stay diabolically on topic while mumbling his bars. It feels like the music his audience listens to in spirit, but the conclusion of whether or not he manages to please his particular supporters feels uncertain on this album.
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