Featured guest appearances include Future, Young Thug, Chris Brown, Playboi Carti, Giveon, Fivio Foreign, and Sosa Geek.

Dark Lane Demo Tapes sees Drake moving away from his "hitmaking formula" to more experimentation, with common producers on his previous records being absent on the mixtape.

With its production taking influence from lo-fi, UK drill, trap, SoundCloud rap, R&B and soul, the mixtape is noted for not being as cohesive as Drake's previous records.

[15] On April 7, 2020, Drake previewed unreleased songs on Instagram Live with OVO Mark, including "Time Flies", "Deep Pockets", "Landed", "Pain 1993", and "Demons".

[1] Plain Pat, known for collaborations with American rappers Kanye West and Kid Cudi, co-produced the lo-fi-influenced "Deep Pockets" with 40.

[25] Writers of Time regarded the lyrics on the mixtape as introspective and not featuring hooks, with them being "surly, withdrawn and clearly indifferent to radio or viral success".

[3] Noah Yoo of Pitchfork highlighted the mixtape's lyrics as Drake at "peak paranoia in his relationships, both business and personal".

[3] Rapping about his "toxic romantic ways" and love interest, Drake interpolates Eminem's flow from his 2002 single "Superman" on the pre-chorus of "Chicago Freestyle".

[29] The mixtape's hit single, "Toosie Slide", was called "strictly a business decision" by Pitchfork due to its dance craze-inspired lyrics aimed for virality on the video-sharing platform TikTok.

[26] "D4L", named after the Atlanta hip hop group D4L, sees Drake collaborate with American rappers Young Thug and Future for a trap song.

[28] Michael Saponara of Billboard described Dark Lane Demo Tapes as a "doom-and-gloom record",[28] while Max Cea of GQ highlighted the mixtape's "hazy synths" and "dim, ambient beats".

's Riley Wallace noted that the mixtape is "rooted in the dark, sombre, solo drive through a sleepy city aesthetic".

[27] Josh Svetz of HipHopDX described the mixtape's tone as "basking in dour ambiance, projecting a setting of drizzling rain cascading from the clouds in the grey sky as vibrating 808s set the tone", while Drake "sounds like he's crooning from the balcony of a high rise loft at 3 a.m., draped in a Versace Baroque bathrobe as he sips on red wine.

[44] In a first listen review, Noah Yoo of Pitchfork praised the collaborations on Dark Lane Demo Tapes for being "well-considered and mostly successful", as they complement Drake's emotions, such as "bitter, eccentric, and aggressive".

[3] In a review for AllMusic, Tim Sendra stated that while the mixtape is not as "fun or sonically interesting" as Drake's early work, it's a step in a more progressive direction.

"[39] Writing for Exclaim!, Riley Wallace noted that Dark Lane Demo Tapes delivers a "good collection of cuts" and features "some absolute gems", however, it fails to offer anything different from Drake's previous releases.

Petridis summed up Dark Lane Demo Tapes as having "flashes of skill and rawness, [but] feeling like a clumsy lunge at commercial success".

[34] In an official review for Pitchfork, Rawiya Kameir hailed the mixtape for having "moments of precise delivery, sticky flows, and hooks primed to be enjoyed in the context of an arena show", but criticized Drake's "teenage boyhood" lyricism directed at women.

[45] In a generally negative review of Dark Lane Demo Tapes, NME's Luke Morgan Britton felt that Drake "failed to learn the lessons" from his previous album, Scorpion, describing the mixtape as a "bloated and unnecessary release, which veers from recycled ideas to outright duds".

Svetz also criticized "Losses" for being near the tail end of the Dark Lane Demo Tapes, which he described as the most well-written ballad on the mixtape, and an "intro worthy material" song.