(Not really a rebuttal to you, I generally agree w/ everything you saying)
Ja Rule never had a dedicated male fanbase. I was 12 when Pain is Love dropped and my aunt who babysat us was obsessed with him. It was the dudes that were the followers where people had to find a happy medium and listen to what the bytches were listening to.
Drakes female fanbase dissipated after More Life, so Scorpion basically. They didn't care about no Kanye West beef. Drake pivoted into the red pill communities and earned himself a legion of suburban listeners ("I don't listen to rap but") whom he seduced with his flagrantly false tough talk. His OVO dikkriders will allow him to remain as long as they want him to.
Without them women however, he's not gonna get anymore hits and it's looks to be that he lost that after the baby mama bullshyt. He hasn't had a hit that he didn't ride off of somebody else that lasted since... when, honestly? In My Feelings/Sicko Mode (I'll give him Sicko Mode)? I say this knowing daaaamn well that he was still in his run with God's lan and Nice For What
I think CB is a hack but he's had a FEW. No Guidance, Go Crazy, and that weird ass Under the Influence song
Everything you said is facts. Especially the fanbase stuff. Drake really duped these GenZ males by becoming some weird redpill anti-hero. Old ass nearly 40yr old Millennial Drake.
That's why alot of us Millennials don't really rock with drake like that, and see through the kayfabe. He really had the women when he was doing the simp Bria's Interlude type music. He had millenial women in his pocket. But ever since he went Joker mode aftet PushaT, he's been talking and moving very crazy. Becoming a figure head for mobties, and crashing out on these records and talking crazy on women and past relationships. He's like a slightly more edgy version of Taylor Swift. Except his "Swifties" are jaded young men or young men who live vicariously through him and want to "Dawg" these bytches.
It's like an audio PUA of sorts. Drake will be alright for now. But the veil has definitely been torn, like no other rapper has done. I don't even think JayZ was as powerful as Drake is now, when Nas dropped Either on Jay. This was a reckoning.
As I've been saying, the Drake feature is a half-truth of sorts. Artist get big after the Drake feature, but these were artist who were already on their way to topping the charts and were already mainstream. SexyRedd gave drake that female fanbase stimulus when he was starting to slow down with that demographic. The most popular part of Rich Baby Daddy is SexxyRedd's vocals. That's who the ladies came to listen to. Drake is a genius in that regard, in which he knows how to "keep up" and just be all encompassing and omnipresent with anything trending with the ladies. He's always there, he's everywhere.
