It’s been a hot second since I was able to fully enjoy Drake’s 2011 classic album, Take Care. What I mean by that, of course, is that I haven’t been nauseatingly heartbroken in a while. I often say this is Drake’s best album, but it doesn’t hit the same when you aren’t down in the dumps.

The first time I truly experienced this album was after my first “real relationship” in high school, and the amount of times I listened was downright concerning. Spotify needs to start tracking these things and checking in on people clearly going through it.

There aren’t many 19-song-albums where I’m like, “wow, thank goodness there’s 19 songs in here.” In fact, this might be the only album I’ve said that about. The features, production, and variation from sob songs to hits like “Lord Knows” keep me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. The project is also packed with one-liners for suburban white boys like me to use in captions, so that’s a plus.

You get something new from every track, whether it’s “Shot For Me” or “Make Me Proud”, which features the best female rapper in the game, Nicki Minaj (Doja Cat’s on the come up though). If I hear so much as the first two seconds of “HYFR (Hell Ya F*cking Right),” I clear my throat and prepare to spit the full song word for word.

Don’t come at me for being a Drake stan though. You won’t catch me defending some of his newer antics. You think “she say she a lesbian, girl me too” in “Girls Like Girls (with Lil Baby)” had me feeling anything other than confusion?

To tell the truth, I’m a stan for the old Drake, and Take Care in particular. He combined sex, heartbreak, cockiness, and who knows what else to create what might be my favorite album of all-time. He spoke to an entire generation and went 6x Platinum in the process. He made this project specifically for me, I swear. I wish I could go back though and relive the first time the album REALLY resonated with me.

I just want to look out the car window in the rain, blasting “Marvins Room,” yelling “I’m just sayin’ you could do better” again. Until then, it just won’t be the same.

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