Drake - Take Care

This is the cover from Drake's second album. The first thing you notice is the colour scheme of gold and black. The colours have complete opposite connotations. Black can be associated with power, strength and authority, but its more common for being the symbol of grief. Gold represents prestige and wealth. Both these colours help us with the true meaning of the album itself. This gold theme we see here is also seen in Kanye's album 'The Throne' and Drake is known to be a big fan of his. Here we see Drake sat thoughtfully in a mansion of some sort with his head hung over a golden goblet with the rest of his gold objects looking sad. Due to his sudden rise in the music industry, this may be just to show his true feelings about it. instead of being overwhelmed, but he just looks depressed suggesting maybe the fame and money isn't really the life for him. The music in the album suggests this too.We also know he is unhappy through his position. Looking down suggests he is sad or depressed, if he was looking up it would suggest he is proud and happy. All the items shown suggest high status living like any other rapper in the music industry showing wealth through iconic images which you see a lot on album covers. Drake refers to himself as 'the underground king' in one of his songs, the image of him in front of a lavish painting with gold chains, goblet and candle sticks clearly suggests he wants the audience to see him as a king, the best of the music industry. This representation of a king is very old fashioned so the theme of heritage and contemporary style are not modern at all but rather quite traditional. This is not something you see on the front of a rap artists album cover. You would expect to see a man in a bandanna with his trousers low and graffiti in the background.

The main issue raised about this album art is the owl. There are a few arguments for the meaning of the owl the first is that the owl is the Moloch which represents the ideology of Bohemianism. According to the internet this is 'a person, as an artist or writer, who lives and acts free of regard for conventional rules'. Twice a year they have a ceremony called the cremation of care which takes place in front of a giant statue of an owl. This simply represents Drake's ideology and how he practices Bohemianism. The second argument is that owls are often considered to be a bad omen by some western cultures. Therefore we see Drake in a not so good place and therefore this symbolises that he is a bad omen. The third argument is that owls are nocturnal living creatures and have a stigma attached to it just like the underground rap music where Drake first started off so this shows him representing his music and what he really loves. The owl is a symbol from the Hebrew alphabet - Hebrew is the language of the Jews - Drake's mother is from a Jewish background, so this can just represent who he is and where he comes from. Some say this owl means none of these three arguments, instead, the letters OVO (October's very own) just look like an owl and have no real meaning to it.

I have to say this is probably my favorite album, by my favorite artist, with an amazing cover (which is why i have written in so much detail). It really is amazing, its just missing his name!

'He has it all, money, power, fame, but he doesn't have happiness'