I have not written Drake off. Given his discography he could give us a pretty good set. I have not written Drake off. Instead I gave a well thought out list of reasons why I think it's a bummer that Drake is the headliner strictly speaking as a huge Hip Hop fan. Come to think of it, Drake would be the worst of all the headliners coming into the festival. I went Weekend 2 last year and Outkast had a great performance and I had a great time near the front row. However given the debacle that apparently was their week 1 performance Drake could end up being not the worst of the Hip Hop headliners. But, coming into the festival I think most Hip Hop fans would agree that this is the worst headliner they've had. Additionally frustrating is that there were better options for Hip Hop fans. Looking for a crossover hip hop act to close the festival? Eminem. Want an artist to appeal to the deeper Hip Hop audience to close Friday night? Kendrick for the new school, something like Tribe for the old school. Hell last year we had Nas perform Ill fucking matic and he wasn't even on the mainstage...

Let's talk about whether I'm giving Drake enough credit or not. First of all there is a discussion to be had about making Pop music and what that means.

To me there are two types of Pop music. First, what Tayler Swift and Katy Perry make. The best way I have heard it described is this- this type of pop music is like McDonalds. It tastes great but it was designed in a lab to make you like it. After a year or so you realize what you're eating is shit and never eat it again. Personally, if I saw Tayler Swift live tomorrow I would be getting funky to shake it off. If I saw Taylor Swift live a year from now and she played Shake it off I would roll my eyes thinking how lame the song sounds.

The second type of Pop music I like to classify as Lady Gaga pop. This kind of pop music is creative and allows an artist to express themselves in an honest and frankly artistic way. Outside of Poker Stick and Just Dance I could listen to any Lady Gaga cut and enjoy it still years later.

So the question is which type of Pop music is Drake making? Well if you go by beat selection I would say he is definitely in the Lady Gaga category, which might be giving him more credit than he deserves but then again I am a Drake fan. Lets take two singles as examples. 0 to 100 has a pretty skeletal beat that I would say only sounds like a pop song because Drake put a crazy catchy hook on it. How about The Motto? Here Drake made a strictly Bay Area beat and made it a cultural phenomenon. Awesome, I am a big fan and I will still like these songs years from now. In this case I think a guy like E-40 could have made this beat a huge pop hit as well, it's fantastic in it's own right. But we could safely say that Drake is being eclectic and creative with his beat selection. However, his hooks and rhymes in both of these songs are absolutely the first type of Pop music. Compare these hooks and lyrics to songs like Jesus Walks and Bombs Over Baghdad. There is no artistic let down in an effort to appease popular culture. Yet these songs were massive. (Once again only comparing Drake to headliners because guess what, hes a headliner now not 5 years from now).

Another point is, why defend what Drake may become as an artist. Who cares? I am not attacking Drake as an artist only as a headliner. He may drop three albums in a row on Good Kid Mad City level (he won't) in the next five years. So what? He's playing Coachella now. And the way you compared Drake to Kanye is pretty funny. Kanye's first two albums are certifiable hip hop classics. Drake is on album # 7 or something? Kanye would have been a huge draw even after #2.

There are two types of real Drake fans. First there are the fans that will defend whatever he does and think that he is already a g.o.a.t. Second there are fans who remember loving records like So Far Gone and telling people "hey you need to watch out for this guy, he sings, he raps, hes niiiice". This second type of fan has generally been let down by every record since. We still love his hit singles but when you sit down and listen to his records, especially the deeper cuts, they are very often corny or just bad. I often get the feeling that on a 20 song record that he tried to hit a pop homerun with all 20 of them. So what you end up with is 5 awesome pop songs and 15 huge pop misses where he just said fuck it this isn't good enough to make the radio, we'll do better next time just throw it on the fucking album.