It features contributions from Alicia Keys, Timbaland, Swizz Beatz, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, The-Dream, and Kanye West, among others.

Thank Me Later has a languorous, ambient production that incorporates moody synthesizers, sparse beats, obscured keyboards, minor keys, and subtle arrangements.

Drake's emotionally transparent, self-deprecating lyrics are delivered in both rapped and subtly sung verses, and explore feelings of doubt, insecurity, and heartbreak.

Reviews of Thank Me Later were generally positive, with critics applauding Drake's personal themes and drawing musical comparisons to the works of Kid Cudi and West, particularly the latter's 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak.

[1][2] The single reappeared on his debut EP,[2] which was released after a bidding competition among labels and his signing with Universal Motown Records amid support from high-profile hip hop artists such as Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Lil Wayne.

[11] Lil Wayne, Cortez Bryant, Gee Roberson, Ronald "Slim" Williams, Oliver El-Khatib, Noah "40" Shebib, Derrick "E.I."

[16] In early November 2009, Lil Wayne released an official statement explaining that Thank Me Later had been completed, though Drake later commented that he was still working on the album.

[18] In a genre that demands boldness and bravado, Drake turns his first full-length release into an inward-looking, slow-moving, psychedelic psychodrama ... it plays like an off-kilter dream by a reluctant rap star.

[19][23] The Toronto Star describes the content as "about the sorts of doubts, excesses, betrayals and creeping paranoid suspicions that arrive hand-in-hand with celebrity".

[24] Music journalist Greg Kot describes the album as "personal and eccentric, the journal of a flawed, self-doubting regular guy rather than a strutting icon-in-waiting".

[26][27][28] Nathan Rabin writes that, "musically, Drake favors warm washes of synthesizers that create a melancholy, fragile mood redolent of 808s & Heartbreak.

[19][26] By contrast, Joshua Ostroff of The Globe and Mail feels that Thank Me Later's "emotional navel-gazing lacks West's often-suffocating self-pity and offers a proper synthesis of rap and R&B.

"[22] Jeff Weiss of the Los Angeles Times views that the album ignores West's celebratory side "in search of anthems for the easily alienated".

[23] In "The Resistance", Drake worries about fame changing him, with lyrics veering from his ailing grandmother to a one-night stand that resulted in an abortion.

[25][32] The Jay-Z-collaboration is a critique on the hip hop industry, its detrimental effects,[23] and the trappings of being an artist: "While all my closest friends out partyin'/ I'm just here makin' the music that they party to," while Jay-Z gives advice: "Drake, here's how they gonna come at you / with silly rap feuds, trying to distract you.

"[37] "Miss Me" has Lil Wayne rapping jokes,[37] including a crude punch line about sucking "the brown" off his penis and subsequently groaning, "Ewwww, that's nasty.

"[20] "Cece's Interlude" has a Prince-like LinnDrum and transparent lyrics addressing a girl: "I wish I / Wasn't famous / I wish I / Was still in school / So that I could have you in my dorm room / I would put it on you crazy.

"[23] Pitchfork critic Ryan Dombal said "Drake vies for superstardom while embracing his non-drug-dealing, non-violent, non-dire history-- one that connects with most rap fans in a completely reasonable way.

[28] Rosen, writing for Rolling Stone, found Drake to be "in total command of a style that would have been hard to imagine dominating hip-hop a few years ago".

[26] In the opinion of Ben Detrick from Spin, Thank Me Later had "dynamics like few other hip-hop albums before it", and while "Drake's personal anecdotes lack the bravado of bullet-wound boasts", they were "intimate and lyrically detailed enough to draw blood".

Daniel Roberts of PopMatters said none of the songs are better than "Best I Ever Had" and believed Drake was suffering from an "identity crisis", finding the record "good at parts, but never great".

"[68] Slant Magazine's Jesse Cataldo viewed Drake's "insistent navel-gazing" as a flimsy "concept", but commended the album for "nail[ing] confused introspection in a genre famous for willful misrepresentation of self.