Thank Me Later Review

The problem with a debut that follows a landmark mixtape is that the debut has to be a product, and this one sounds like one. Big features, expensive mixes, a rollout, and a young man clearly aware that every bar was being weighed. Over and Find Your Love are efficient singles that do not sound much like him. Fireworks and Shut It Down are where the actual record is, patient and cold and built around long keyboard tones, with guest vocalists giving them a warmth the rapping does not.

The lyrics are stuck on one subject, which is how strange it is to be newly famous, and by the eighth track the novelty of hearing a man complain about the thing he wanted has worn thin. It is not a bad album. It is a cautious one, and it is the only record of his where you can hear the machinery working. Everything he did better afterwards is already sketched in here.