Listen to “7am on Bridle Path” by Drake
When a Drake song has a specific time in its title, that’s your signal to buckle up. Each release in the Canadian polymath’s vaunted AM/PM song series—which began with 2010’s “9AM in Dallas”— is a timestamp of his career, providing an update on his mindset and his bank account. If you listen to each song in order, you can hear his confidence grow over the course of the decade he dominated. Compare the Drake from “Dallas” to the one on “7am on Bridle Path,” the series’ fifth chapter and a standout on Drake’s latest album Certified Lover Boy, and you can see how his confidence has ballooned. He raps like he has nothing to lose, even if that couldn’t be further from the truth.
He’s stoic and focused over Cardo’s wavy production, implying that he runs Canada and threatening to put people on T-shirts for endangering his son. His pun and flex game is bulletproof (finding a rhyme for Milwaukee Bucks player Giannis Antetokounmpo’s last name is no small feat), but the little insecurities still present in Drake’s mind stand out. He’s wary of people trying to get the “Earl Grey” on him and labels the media as “the fourth level of jealousy.” The song is named for the upscale Toronto neighborhood where Drake’s multi-million dollar home is located, but even after 10 years at the top of the game, he still has a prime obsession: “Fuck a ‘Respectfully,’ I just want my respect.”