After months maybe even a year of feuding, this classic and ongoing war between Drake and Chris Brown will definitely be classed as one of the strongest hip-hop rivalries that music has heard of in a while. With the continuing digs and disses at each other it seems like the pair will never simmer down, well not for a while anyway. So in another debate we look at which artist just has the edge.
Music
Both Drizzy and Breezy have had their fair few of decent tracks during their careers. Drake is in the Hip-Hop genre whilst Chris fits into the R&B/Pop genre with a bit of rap thrown into there. “Kiss Kiss”, “With You” are some of Chris’ biggest R&B smashes with bought a fresh young face onto the scene. However unfortunately he hit a blind spot with albums which have nearly all been critically dismissed. However with the release of “Fine China”, recently he’s bought a new cross over single which shows another side to the already diverse singer and seems to a step into the perfect direction for him.
Drake has also seen some of the biggest singles for Hip-Hop in recent years. Tracks such as “Take Care”, “Best I Ever Had” and “Practise” all showcase his skills as both rapper and singer. It’s easy to say that his success is BIG, his tracks usually live up to the hype built around them but sometimes when you create a craze such as YOLO you slowly lose sight of what hype is needed in rap?
Winner : Chris Brown (Ever So Slightly)
Success (Awards, Sales, Reception)
Chris Brown has sold around 10 million records worldwide with five albums released (averaging 2 million an album). In comparison Drake has sold 5 million records sold worldwide with two albums (averaging 2.5 million records an album). Chris Brown has had 15 top tens on the US R&B charts with ten of these also charting within the top ten for the overall US Hot 100. Drake this time has had 12 top tens on the US R&B charts and six of these also charted on the main 100 top ten.
Both artists have received one Grammy award each (with Drake receiving one more nomination overall). Chris has won three VMA’s with Drake only with a lonesome one. Chris has also received more American Music Awards and BET awards than Drake.
However on MetaCritic all of Drake’s albums have been received with widespread praise by fans and critics alike with all averaged positive ratings and an average career rating of 77 (which means positive reviews). On the other hand two of Chris Brown’s albums have received negative reviews and one with mixed reviews. In fact his highest rated album peaks at 69 which is something Drake’s lowest rated album hasn’t received (it got higher). He has an average career Metascore of 49 which indicates mixed reviews throughout his career despite his several awards.
Winner : Drake
Conclusion
Both artists have varied in their careers with one being “advantagely” longer than the others. However it’s easy to see that whilst Chris Brown has a youthfulness and playfulness about him in his music, outside of the music world he can become very serious and well we all know what happened. And whilst YOLO is nearly as bad a crime, it has bought out a great spoof by Lonely Island and his tracks are sometimes easier to listen to than Chris Brown’s tracks.
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