“Make Them Cry,” first song on ICEMAN. Previewed on the livestream, then midnight.

My dad got cancer right now. We battling stages. Trust me when I say there’s things I’d rather be facing.

Present tense. The internet treated it as a bulletin. Dennis Graham, 71, is the father in the stories and the drums. The relationship has been public, messy, then warmer. A hug photo the same week. Caption from Dennis: the Ice Man and the Nice Man.

Friday morning outside Jubilee in West Hollywood, paparazzi asked him. He said no, that was a while back. I’m okay now. I’m wonderful. Phone going off all night. Thank you for the concern. It was lung cancer at first. Fortunately I got a message that it disappeared. So here I am. A puff every now and then. Not like I used to.

Recording dates on a three-album pile are not stamped on the lyric sheet. Drake had been cutting ICEMAN across years. A verse can sit in the past while the file drops in the present. That is the simplest way the two sentences can both be true. Drake did not issue a correction. Dennis issued a status.

The selfie on this graphic is the three generations in a car. Adonis in front, curly hair, face scrunched. Dennis in the bucket hat and red glasses. Drake smiling into the lens. The watermark sat on Mickey. That is the picture the caption wants next to a cancer line: family still in the frame.

Health news from a song is a bad wire service. The son wrote a present-tense fear. The father said the scan came back clear. Listeners can hold both. The album did not wait. Neither did Dennis on the sidewalk. He asked for the concern to land as love and then said he was wonderful. That is the last word he put on his own body.