Drake Officially Becomes First Artist to Pass 50 Billion Spotify Streams
Unofficial reports began trickling out a few days ago, but now it’s official: Drake has become the first artist ever to surpass 50 billion combined streams on Spotify, a rep for the streaming service confirmed to Variety.
Drake himself didn’t wait for official confirmation, posting the news on his Instagram Story over the long holiday weekend.
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Drake via his IG story pic.twitter.com/olaTZqwCHh
— Drake Direct (@DrakeDirect_) January 18, 2021
The feat is impressive but not surprising, considering that his 2018 song “God’s Plan” alone has racked up nearly 1.675 billion streams all by itself, with multiple other songs in the hundred-millions.
His lead is likely to grow exponentially in the coming weeks, as his new album, “Certified Lover Boy,” the follow-up to 2018’s “Scorpion,” is expected to drop this month.
The Toronto-born artist has racked up many streaming feats in recent years: He was Spotify’s most-streamed artist of the 2010s, with 28 billion streams; the top 5 was rounded out by Ed Sheeran, Post Malone, Ariana Grande and Eminem.
In its first 24 hours of release in 2018, Drake’s “Scorpion” shattered Spotify’s one-day global record for album streams, with the album’s individual tracks totaled 132,450,203 streams, more than 50,000,000 greater than the previous record, set just weeks earlier by Post Malone’s “Beerbongs & Bentleys,” which was streamed 78,744,748 times globally on its first day of release.
Drake first hinted that a new album was in the works in April, although he originally had it slated for release this summer. On Aug. 14, Drake revealed the album’s title to be “Certified Lover Boy” alongside the release of “Laugh Now Cry Later” featuring Lil Durk, which was the first single to be released from this new project.
He released a short teaser in October, which also happened to be his 34th birthday. The caption confirmed that the name of the album is “Certified Lover Boy,” and the release date is January 2021.
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