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Gil Scott-Heron Jamie xx - I’ll Take Care Of You [mp3]

Someone on my tumblr feed had mentioned that this is (musically) a great time of year because there’s an opportunity to check out albums that you’ve missed that made others “best of year” lists.  I completely agree!  I’ve been enjoying all kinds of stuff, but guys, we gotta talk about Drake’s Take Care for a second.

Take Care is is terrible.  Straight up.  The reason emotive/introspective rap works well for Kanye West is because he’s got a larger than life persona.  The reason it doesn’t work for Drake is because he’s so very, very boring.

The focal point of my grievances is the title track on the album, which is literally a wholesale sample of Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx’s I’ll Take Care Of You (from this year’s ultra-fantastic I’m New Here).  Rihanna’s replaced and neutered Gil Scott-Heron’s vocals.  Drake’s doing his boo-hoo sing/rap stuff.  It’s disposable mixtape caliber at best.  It kills me that 90% of those listening this track won’t know the source… and how much better - and equally contemporary - the source is.  (Yes, I’m aware that Gil Scott-Heron basically sampled Bobby Bland… but there’s an legitimate effort put forward to build upon the source material.)

TL;DR - hey, you should check out that Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx album. It’s pretty great and worthy of making your own personal best of 2011 list.