"I'm on One" Is Drake and Lil Wayne's Freaky Friday

Day 343: "I'm On One" feat. Drake, Rick Ross, and Lil Wayne – DJ Khaled, We the Best Forever, 2011

If "Every Girl" and "Bed Rock" were star-making moments for Drake, and "Forever" was a coronation, "I'm on One" was the moment where he eclipsed Wayne as a star. That's not a knock on Wayne, whose line here of "Yeah, too much money ain't enough money / You know the Feds listening, nigga, what money?" is one of his best moments anywhere—lively and evocative, an inversion of expectations and creative in a way that it's hard to imagine another rapper doing.

But where Drake was another weapon in the arsenal of those early group hits, here he's the big gun, the guy who makes it a hit. Usually, that role would have fallen to Wayne, but Wayne is actually the least essential ingredient (even DJ Khaled's verse—i.e. him drinking a Four Loko and brooding on the balcony in the video—feels more central to the song). I don't say that with any pleasure. Even though I was happy, when this song came out, to see Drake step into the spotlight, even though I was excited to hear that he and 40 were back to work (on what would become Take Care) but still smelled like a vacation, I also knew with grim resignation at this point that Drake was going to surpass Wayne's career.

There's an upside to that development for Wayne fans: This trading of roles in some ways has freed Wayne from the burden of being the pop artist, and he can always claim to not only be the greatest rapper but also to have shepherded in the next great rap star. Such is the true hue of success: it might be purple, it might be pink, depending on how you mix that shit. At the end of the day, Wayne wasn't just on one but rather on two—two genre-shifting careers, two paths to immortality, even two songs with videos where DJ Khaled was standing around holding an umbrella.

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