Rappers Are Singers Now. Thank Drake. At the end of 2009, the most popular song in the country was “Empire State of Mind,” the hoary, inflated, thudding collaboration between Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. It was perhaps the final evolutionary form — a mealy and edgeless arena ballad — of the rapper-singer collaborations that, over the prior two-plus decades, had come to dominate hip-hop and, increasingly, pop. By that point, the formula — a rapper brings narrative, and a singer brings pathos, joy or sensuality — was still largely unquestioned. But in truth, songs like this had become rote and unimaginative. That same year, someone finally noticed, and in one fell swoop, solved the problem. Drake’s “So Far Gone” mixtape — released in February 2009 — marked the arrival of new path: singing as rapping, rapping as singing, singing and rapping all woven together into one holistic whole. Drake exploded the notion that those component parts had to be delivered by two different people, and also deco