Drake, now this is not the way to take care of Rihanna.

After Drake was long rumored to have an on-again, off-again relationship with Rihanna while the two superstars cozied on up the charts together for some iconic collabs — from 2010’s “What’s My Name?” and 2016’s “Work” to, most memorably (for this critic), 2011’s “Take Care” — Drizzy certainly seems to be in his salty feelings on his new album “For All the Dogs.”

Dropping at 6 a.m. Friday morning instead of the usual midnight (Note to Drake: Please don’t go all Kanye on us with this last-minute release shuffling), the 23-track, 85-minute epic — which would have been a damn triple LP back in the day — appears to address Ri-Ri on the already-viral cut “Fear of Heights.”

And when we say “appears,” well, the trolling track packs all of the subtlety of his recent barretted-up hair-don’t that had him looking like Tempest Bleddsoe aka Vanessa Huxtable from “The Cosby Show.”

Over a spooky groove to set it off, Drake — who was rumored to not be having it when Rihanna boo’d and then baby’d up with A$AP Rocky — sure sounds like a bitter ex when he opens with, “Why they make it sound like I’m still hung up on you?/That could never be/Gyal can’t be me/Better him than me/Better it’s not me.”

Drake and Rihanna were down with each other back in 2010, but times seemed to have changed.WireImage
The way that “gyal” appropriates Caribbean slang for “girl” leaves little doubt that he’s talking about the Barbadian beauty.

But then things turn even shadier with his play on “Anti” — which was, of course, the last studio album that Rihanna released way back in 2016. “I’m anti, I’m anti,” he drones in a monotone delivery, switching up that second “anti” to sound more like “antie” — a version of “auntie” without the love that usually comes through the “u” in the pronunciation.

It’s a dead giveaway.

But to make matters even worse, he sinks even lower with, “And the sex was average with you … And I had way badder bitches than you TBH.”

TBH? Really, Drake??

Drake’s new album — featuring artwork by his 5-year-old son Adonis, is an epic 85 minutes.
Sorry, Drizzy, even on the 1 percent chance that this is not about Rihanna, this is not the way a so-called “Certified Lover Boy” acts.

And all of this ex-bashing happens in just about 43 seconds into the song before the beat changes and Drakes spits, “I know you a cat, but can your p—-y do the dog?” (Oh, so that’s why he named this album “For All the Dogs.”)

It’s a mere blip in almost an hour and a half of music, but it sure leaves a major bad taste.

Certainly, the rest of “For All the Dogs” — which kinda makes me want to give a shout-out to O.G. “American Idol” dawg Randy Jackson — feels like an album that could tide fans over while Drake takes the one-year hiatus from music to prioritize his health that he announced on Friday.

It will practically take the whole weekend to get through the album a few times to really tell just how good (or bad in spots) it is. But it’s certainly no dog —  for the other 5,000-plus seconds at least.