“Scary Hours 2” EP Review

By Ryan Croke

I am writing on this on March 5, 2021, and at midnight last night, the international superstar that is Drake dropped Scary Hours 2, a three track EP that is a sequel to his 2018 EP Scary Hours. The original project featured his smash hit God’s Plan and is a very strong EP, considering it only had two songs. The sequel, announced only a few days before release, features 3 tracks and a 12:34 runtime. I am going to provide my first impressions and thoughts on Scary Hours 2 and each track from the brief EP.

Drake, a worldwide phenomenon, is one of the most well known hip hop artists in the game right now, and I bet one of the few your parents or grandparents have heard of. Over the course of the 2010s, he had been able to prove himself as a strong talent when it comes to making music. Although I find Drake to be a little overrated, I do listen to some of his songs, and he does have a great deal of enjoyable tracks. The Canadian artist has definitely seen a decline in his reputation over the last 5 years, ever since the release of his 7th studio album Views back in May 2016. His albums since then, including Views, have not measured up to his previous work. Scary Hours 2 comes before the release of the highly anticipated Certified Lover Boy, the newest album from the Toronto rapper that has been announced for months, but has yet to be released. After many albums that have received backlash, CLB is an important album for the superstar, who needs to prove that he’s still got it. Scary Hours 2 is also important for him, and we may be getting a preview of what CLB will sound like on this short EP.

The first track of three is What’s Next, featuring an infectious instrumental behind some strong bars from Drake, with lyrics about his career success, and brags about his abilities and how everything he releases is at the top of the carts. The song was leaked prior to release, and the first snippets of the track were first heard by fans on the Instagram story of DK Metcalf, NFL superstar. What’s Next is certainly not Drake’s deepest song, not by any means, but the enjoyable lines combined with the instrumental make this one of my all time favorite songs from Drake, despite being available for less than 24 hours.

Track 2, Wants and Needs, features Lil Baby, an artist who exploded in popularity in 2020 with the release of My Turn. Although I can barely tolerate most songs from the Atlanta rapper, the feature verse he provides on this song is great, and his voice is somewhat easy to understand. The soft instrumental is great, and Drake provides the best lyrics from the EP on this song. Another great song, Wants and Needs is already another all time Drake favorite for me.

The final song, Lemon Pepper Freestyle, features Rick Ross, Florida legend. The 6 minute song is another impressive showing, although I think Ross is clearly outshined by Drake on the song, and doesn’t deliver as well as Lil Baby does on the previous track. The instrumental is definitely the weakest on the album, at least for me, and there isn’t too much more to say. The lyrics are somewhat strong, but not as strong as that of Wants and Needs. This song is good, but doesn’t quite measure up to the prior two for me.

After a few years of dropping very underwhelming material Drake returns to form on Scary Hours 2, and for the first time in a long time, I am excited to see what he does next. If this is any sign of what is to come on Certified Lover Boy, we are in for a treat, because Scary Hours 2 is the most I have enjoyed a Drake project since his 2015 album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, and might be my second favorite project from the Canada legend, despite its extremely brief runtime. It has zero misses, something fans have not been able to say about a Drake project in a long time. I will not give Scary Hours 2 a rating out of 10, although if I were to do so, I would give it an 8/10. Instead, I will give the EP a 3/3, because of the small sample size. The EP is impressive, and it has restored some of my faith in Drake. My final rating for Scary Hours 2 is a 3/3.

Here is my ranking of the songs from Scary Hours 2: