The frustrating thing is that it was never Jekyll and Hyde stuff. It was always the lack of a throughline that rankled it never felt as if Drake was anywhere close to a substantial reconciliation of these two sides of his musical personality. It really felt like a case of so near yet so far, both times just as either release felt like it was about to hit its atmospheric stride, there’d be a track that punctured it and spoiled the good work – a badly-placed banger after a succession of soul-searches, or a woozy downer stopping a cocky strut dead in its tracks. Take Care’s title track, built around that fabulous Gil Scott-Heron sample, was a razor-sharp modern love song, and yet it sat on the same record as obvious club staples like “Headlines” and “H.Y.F.R.” Great from a commercial point of view, but it left the album itself – and its follow-up, 2013’s Nothing Was the Same - crying out for cohesion. That, inevitably, made him a record executive’s dream here’s a guy who can have massive singles on both sides of the coin, who can have the confrontational crackle of “Over” come off the same album as the schmaltz of “Find Your Love” – two different flavours of radio smash.Īnd the thing is, when he’s at his best, he can do either, both, in convincing fashion. His first mixtape, So Far Gone, put him amongst a new vanguard in hip hop, one where introspection, not extroversion, was paramount (see also: Kid Cudi’s superlative A Kid Named Cudi.) Drake had hardened a little by the time Thank Me Later, his debut proper, dropped – still thoughtful, but no longer afraid to brag. Sharing on Instagram a picture of the plaque he received, and signed by Tim Cook, Drake captioned the image simply as “B’s”.Is he the archetypal rapper he so clearly thinks he needs to be to keep his head above the hip hop water – the ultra-competitive alpha male who reels off details of wealth, women and status with casual arrogance? Or is he the man trying to drag the genre, kicking and screaming, in another direction entirely, one where emotional literacy is the most valuable currency? He’s been playing at both roles right from the start, and whether you view that as flexibility or indecision probably indicates the regard – or lack thereof – in which you hold his work.įor better or worse, though, that’s always been his calling card.
Today it looks like Drake hit a major milestone by being the first album to achieve over 1 billion streams on Apple Music. According to the WSJ, Apple Music users had “streamed the album more than 250 million times world wide”. Potentially riding off that high, the artist also shared a picture on Instagram commemorating Apple Music’s largest stream count for an album ever.ĭrake’s Views album may have only had a one-week exclusive on Apple’s service, but it appeared to have been all worth it once it was evident it sold over a million copies in less than fives days. It looks like Drake shows no signs of stopping.Īfter teasing it on his Instagram (and then removing it) it looks like Drake’s short film, Please Forgive Me, is now available to stream exclusively on Apple Music. From releasing a surprise mixtape on iTunes last year, to an exclusive stream of Views, all the way down to his own Beats 1 radio show. Having come a long way from the awkward Apple Music onstage presence at WWDC, Drake’s relationship with Apple has seemingly only been on the up and up for the entertainer.