Why Is A Drake & Sade Mashup The Best Song Of 2017?

“Lover’s Smoke” is probably the best song you didn’t hear this year.

Because 2017 is the year when the already fissured Earth opened wide, allowing orange volcanic lava and black molten ash to litter the universe, choosing a great song from this year is an imperiled suggestion. Moreover, because this is the year when we really began to understand just how pervasive, invasive, and utterly frightening the digital-first universe can be, it’s a soul-rap mashup — a genre improved by the prior decade of the Internet’s dominance — blessed by the gospel tradition from two of the most blithely wonderful of artistes that’s the ameliorative ballad we didn’t know we needed, but that we ultimately deserve.

If you’re a fan of either Sade or Drake, 2017 has been an amazing year filled with resplendent conversations about both creatives’ artistic brilliance. For Drake, this year saw the release of “More Love,” not so much an album as it was a Spotify-aimed playlist, a whole album as a “whole mood.” Maybe the first pop release that was…