4 reasons why you should learn to love Drake

It’s hard to think of nice things to say about Drake that haven’t been said before.

By Drake.

“I do my own propaganda,” the singer-rapper announces early on his latest record, “Views,” one of the biggest releases of the year, having topped the Billboard album chart for 12 weeks and been streamed over a billion times already.

With numbers like those, it’s hard to blame Drake for feeling himself of late.

But what about the rest of us?

Much like Kanye West, the artist who most directly paved the way for Drake’s success with a similar blend of emotiveness and ego, musical daring and debauchery, he’s also polarizing, divisive for his hauteur, hubris and womanizing.

Yeah, forget about all that.

With Drake hitting Vegas this weekend, here are the four absolutely bulletproof, coated-in-Kevlar, completely undeniable reasons why you should learn to love the Drake.

OK, admittedly, he can be kind of a D-word at times. But at least he owns it.

Sure, at times, Drake can be the hip-hop equivalent of sobriety: kind of tedious.

For starters, he can come off as just a teensy-tiny bit sexist at times, with rhymes that sound as if they were ghostwritten by his groin.

Even more egregiously, he once referred to himself in song as “Chain-ing Tatum” because, you know, he wears lots of gold chains!

Also, he’s a fan of the Toronto Raptors.

That’s strikes 2 and 3 right there, chief.

And then there’s Drake’s endless boasting about his ability to get ladies to take their clothes off.

“I dated women from my favorite movies,” he brags on the title track to “Views.” And here you thought the female cast members of “Air Bud: Golden Receiver” couldn’t get any luckier.

But here’s the thing, the guy readily acknowledges that he’s not always easy to stomach.

“If I was you, I wouldn’t like me either,” he confesses on “Views.”

Drake flaunts his flaws as brazenly as the $50,000 owl pendant that hangs from his neck, and he never puts on any airs about who he is or what he has to say.

“I hate a rapper especially / They feel the same, but they hide it / They just discuss it in private,” Drake rhymes on “Hype,” critiquing those peers who put on a different face in public than when behind closed doors.

We frequently dismiss celebrities for being fake, for saying one thing when the camera’s on and then another when it’s off, but Drake is a refreshingly genuine dude — even if it means being a truly authentic jerk at times.

You don’t want him to do bedroom stuff with your lady, do you?

Look, dudes, it’s best just to be cool and show Drake some love so that he doesn’t do the same with your girlfriend. Or your wife. Or your favorite meter maid. Or the barista at Starbucks who makes that little smiley face in your latte foam. Or the check-out lady at Albertsons who lets your bring 12 items to the express lane even though the sign clearly states that 10 is the maximum allowed.

Drake is to women what Takeru Kobayashi is to sopping wet hot dog buns: insatiable.

“Yeah, I brought your wifey out to Saint Martin,” he snickers to some poor sap on “Weston Road Flows.” “I see your girl like all the time, all the time, tho / I can’t tell you if she’s yours or mine, but I do know,” he chides some other unlucky dude on “Still Here.” “Girl, really gon’ spend the winter with this other (fellow)?” he asks incredulously on “Redemption,” ready to pounce like the human incarnation of Brian Fantana’s Sex Panther cologne.

For real, Drake steals women like Winona Ryder does handbags, like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” does souls, like this story does what precious, precious little time you have to do something productive with your life for a change.

He once punched Chris Brown in a nightclub.

If only for this reason alone …

Hey, he has feelings too. No, seriously.

The track ends with the sound of a crackling fire, but it’s the man on the mic who’s truly inflamed. The song’s “U With Me?,” and 3½ minutes in, Drake practically combusts, his normally smooth delivery escalating into a wounded shout, the hurt in his voice so palpable, you can practically hear him try to dislodge his heart from his throat.

“Tryna give your ass the world,” he bellows to a former lover whose love he’s clearly not over, his memory of her as bruising as the beat he’s rhyming over. “You runnin’ your fingers through my curls / You knew me when the kid had waves.”

It’s one of the most emotionally resonant moments on “Views,” an album where Drake tempers self-assuredness with moments of reflection, chronicling the hollowness of the high life.

In between all the bedroom braggadocio, Drake addresses the numerous relationships devoured in the maw of fame, the trust issues that come with being a target for opportunists.

“I’m a walkin’ come-up, I’m a bank deposit / Sell my secrets and get top dollar / Sell my secrets for a Range Rover,” he rhymes on “Redemption.” “Opportunity and temptation / They would sell my secrets for a tropical vacation.”

“Views” is the sound of Drake wrangling with his own stardom, a parting of the veil on celebrity.

“Who’s gonna save me when I need savin’?” he asks later on “Redemption.”

That’s a big question, one that remains unanswered.

Read more from Jason Bracelin at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com and follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.