In 2009, Drake released the seminal mixtape So Far Gone and breakout hit “Best I Ever Had.” His inherent superstardom was obvious even back then. He had the music, the charisma, and the pedigree to reign on the charts.

It’s seven years later, and Drake dropped his fourth studio album, Views, last week. The reviews have been pouring in, and with a 69 on Metacritic and 69 million hot takes on Twitter, the consensus seems to be that VIEWS isn’t Drake’s best work. But that hardly matters. Next week, it’s likely “One Dance” will overtake Desiigner’s “Panda” and—like Drake says on “Pop Style”—they’ll “Give a real nigga the number one.” Once he finally scores the elusive No. 1 Billboard hit he so desperately craves, and sells nearly a million his first week, Drake will have completely fulfilled all the promise of his potential.

But it’s all downhill from here.

There’s a reason why I’m convinced that Drake’s glorious reign won’t last. Since maybe 2005, I’ve been messing with the idea that rappers' primes only exist in five-year windows. I call it the Five-Year Theory Of Rap. It’s not that a rapper’s career can’t last more than five years (plenty have) but a rapper can only be in his or her prime for five years before the culture inevitably shifts. Yes, you can still be a technician of the genre where your mic skills never fade, but it doesn’t matter if you aren’t relevant. In a five-year span, middle school kids turn into high school kids who turn into college kids who start living in their mothers' basements. After five years you get the “I miss the old Kanye” conversations. After five years your celebrity can outweigh your musical output. After five years your idols become your rivals. After five years, well, damn homie, in high school you was the man, homie.

I used to always say that Jay Z was the exception to the Five-Year Theory, which is why he’s the GOAT. However, in recent years that’s become less true as guys like Kanye West have seemingly defied gravity. So I wanted to expand it to a longer trajectory of 10 years, with five years being an apex. You can still have hits and be successful past the five-year mark, but what you create is no longer defining your legacy. It just adds to something that’s already there.

Drake’s rich catalogue makes him ripe for a decline. The signs are there too: He’s starting to repeat himself thematically, insulate himself with the same producers and collaborators, and he’s likely to overextend himself flooding the market.

Drake kicked off his five-year apex in 2011 with the release of “Dreams Money Can Buy.” The first two years of Drake, So Far Gone and Thank Me Later, don’t fully encompass the artist he eventually becomes. He was still messing with hashtag flows, fighting the idea that he was a Ja Rule 2.0 who would fade away as soon as the new 50 came gunning for him. He dropped “Best I Ever Had” back then, which remains one of his biggest songs, but he was still more potential than product.

Drake as a fully formed product arrived with 2011’s Take Care. That’s when many of Drake’s motifs emerge: lyrics that sound written for social media captions, welcoming people to make fun of him with that ridiculous cover, the vampiric use of other artists to boost his own music (the Weeknd, Kendrick), the loosies and throwaways that are actually some of his best material (“I’m On One” and “Club Paradise”), and hopping on remixes of regional hits (Future’s “Tony Montana”). Even then, he didn’t hit PEAK DRAKE until last year when he dominated rap, dropped two mixtapes albums, won a major beef, and released the biggest song of his career as a throwaway track.

But guess what comes after a peak? A decline.

I usually chalk up falling off to three major categories, and sometimes even a mix of them. There’s Personal Turmoil, which can be anything from label issues (example: Lupe Fiasco and Atlantic) to legal issues (it’s Gucci!), but typically it just means drugs (DMX and Eminem). Don’t rule drug use out just because it isn’t part of Drake’s brand like, say, Future. Drake has been throwing more prescription drug use into his raps, and on “9” he claims, “And I can’t sleep these days unless I take one,” which might be the most distressing line on the album. Which leads us to the second category: Death a.k.a. The Best Improvement. When an artist dies, the value of their art tends to go up—that’s word to Big, ‘Pac, and all the other dead rappers. And then there’s Artistic Stagnation—when artists become parodies of themselves.

To hear the critics tell it, Drake is suffering from Artistic Stagnation. Rolling Stone’s review of Views is summarized as “Star stagnates on long-awaited fourth LP.“ Meanwhile, The Fader writes that he “recycles past motifs.” Vulture says, "Drake doubled down on Drake and made another Drake album.” Pitchfork called the album “a suffocating echo chamber of self” that “confuses loyalty and stagnation.”

Views‘ lukewarm reception matters because it highlights that suddenly it feels like there’s no more room for improvement. Views marks the last time Drake can be DRAKE, the last time he can rule with an iron fist. There’s just no way his next five years will be as incredible as his last five were—not if he’s reached the plateau the critics suggest he has.

None of this is to say Drake won’t still be famous—fame is a monster that never dies. This isn’t meant to lament about Drake’s latest album either. He’s a living legend who will soon accomplish every goal he set for himself. He’ll still make hits for the next few years off the strength of his name alone. I’d guess Drake will try to become a movie star a la Will Smith in his later years—he told Zane Lowe as much in their recent interview.

Maybe he knows his musical relevance is fleeting, too. On “Weston Road Flows” he raps, “The most successful rapper 35 and under / I’m assuming everybody’s 35 and under / That’s when I plan to retire, man, it’s already funded.” Now there’s a dream that money can buy.