The Drake-ification of Jack Harlow

thefader.com:

Nothing will ever hold a stronger grip on the older band of Gen Z than the summer of 2016. Something was in the air in those final months before the world slipped into a disastrous timeline in the blink of an eye — and it was all soundtracked by Drake, deep in his Main Pop Boy era. “One Dance.” “Work.” “Hotline Bling.” “Controlla.” “Too Good.” “Jumpman.” He was inescapable.

But while everyone with a palpable sense of that summer’s energy is preoccupied with recapturing that lightning in a bottle feeling six years later, 24-year-old Jack Harlow is branching back to a much earlier period. “I feel like a lot of adulthood is trying to get back to childhood,” the Kentucky rapper told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “For the most part, there’s so much nostalgia and there’s so much ‘Oh, I can’t get that back?’” On his sophomore studio album Come Home The Kids Miss You, releaased last Friday, Harlow wields pop samples and interpolations like a time machine, spanning from Soulja Boy’s “Kiss Me Thru The Phone” (“Side Piece”) and Fergie’s “Glamorous” (“First Class”) through Lil Wayne’s “Mrs.

Officer” (“Poison”) and Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” (“I Got A Shot"). There are appearances from Pharrell and Justin Timberlake that evoke wistful reminiscence more than forward-thinking innovation.

With so much pop looking towards '80s synths and early-2000s pop-rock, Harlow hops off at a different stop. Read Next: Watch Future and Drake go medieval in “Wait for U” video In the same Zane Lowe interview, Harlow readily admits to being influenced by hip-hop from 2009.