For her latest album, Drake kept her fans on hold for almost a year. For his newest, the wait was about six hours.
“Honestly, Nevermind,” Drake’s seventh studio LP, was released on streaming services at midnight on Friday, after it was officially announced just hours earlier on Drake’s social media accounts. With 14 tracks, it is a relatively short collection for the rapper and singer superstar. (“Certified Lover Boy,” which came out last September, had 21 songs.)
The producers of the new album include longtime collaborators Noah Shebib (known as 40), Oliver El-Khatib (who is also one of Drake’s managers) and Noel Cadastre, as well as Black Coffee, a South African DJ who arose for the underground and in recent years has worked with stars such as David Guetta and Usher.
In a note attached to the album on Apple Music, Drake said that “Honestly, Nevermind” was dedicated to Virgil Abloh, the influential fashion designer who had a long relationship with Kanye West, and who died in past 41 years of cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare type of cancer.
Fans had been expecting something new from Drake since at least March, when he posted a photo of himself in a recording studio. On the contrary, “Certified Lover Boy” had been abused for almost a year. Drake’s announcement for “Honestly, Nevermind” came just hours after Beyoncé, the undisputed champion of surprise album releases, made her own statement, giving an unusual six-week notice for her upcoming release. “Renaissance”, which will be his first solo. studio album from “Lemonade” in 2016.
“Honestly, Nevermind” comes when the rapper has taken greater control over his career. Last month, the Universal Music Group announced that it had signed a comprehensive agreement with Drake that includes recordings, music publications, and other businesses such as merchandise and visual projects. The terms have not been disclosed, but their value has been estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Drake dominates the streaming market. Although Spotify ranks him as the eighth most popular artist in the world – the Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny is the first – his catalog, with hits such as “One Dance”, “God’s Plan” and “Hotline Bling” , represents some of the most popular music in the format. According to a Billboard analysis, last year Drake’s catalog surpassed all pre-1980 music.
For years, Drake released music through a complex contractual structure that gave ownership of his work to other Universal-affiliated labels. Since “Certified Lover Boy”, their albums have come with a copyright notice stating that the recordings are owned by their company, October’s Very Own, and licensed to Universal, which publishes them through their Republic seal. This arrangement tends to give the artist much greater control, and a much larger share of the revenue, and is also used by great artists such as Adele, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.