Drake’s new album ‘Certified Lover Boy’ has finally dropped after its announcement a little over a year ago.
Below are five things to know about the album by the 34-year-old Canadian rapper:
1. The album, which was released on Friday, September 3, took less than 12 hours to break records, making it already the most streamed album in a single day for Apple Music in 2021, according to Billboard. It also makes Drake the most streamed artist in a 24 hour period this year.
2. Drake features Nigerian singer Temilade Openiyi, known popularly as Tems, on track No.16 called ‘Fountains’
3. The album is the sixth by Drake and it also features guest spots by Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, Travis Scott, 21 Savage, Lil Baby and Yebba.
4. It was originally scheduled for 2020, then early 2021, the record was delayed when the star tore his anterior cruciate ligament, requiring knee surgery.
5. Drake confirmed the album release date with a cryptic message on sports channel ESPN last month.
Drake is one of the most influential and successful hip-hop stars of the last decade, whose emotionally vulnerable lyrics and unique vocal delivery fundamentally changed the nature of rap music, reported BBC’s music reporter Mark Savage.
“In Drake’s hands, rapping and singing were in constant, graceful dialogue,” wrote the New York Times’s critic Jon Caramanica in an essay on the star’s impact last year.
By blurring the lines between rapping and singing, the Canadian star “exploded the notion that those component parts had to be delivered by two different people, and also deconstructed what was expected from each of them,” he added.
“His hip-hop was fluid, not dogmatic. And in so remaking it, he set the template for what would eventually become the global pop norm.”
