Get ready for another summer of Drake! The Canadian rapper released his long-awaited fifth solo album, Scorpion, at midnight ET on Thursday. Drake’s first double-disc album, shot to No. 1 within an hour after it debuted on iTunes and Apple Music on Thursday.
Spotify users had to wait some hours before the new album became available on the popular streaming service. It was also not available on Amazon for several hours after its midnight release, but it is expected to be available at all digital providers on Friday, according to Variety.
Numbers never lie. ?? @Drake #Scorpion pic.twitter.com/yxbS124ALk
— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) June 29, 2018
Scorpion features 25 tracks, with 12 songs on side A, and 13 on Side B, split between rapping and singing respectively, presumably to show off Drake’s diversified skills. The album features the No. 1 singles God’s Plan, Nice For What, and I’m Upset.
Drake first released God’s Plan on January 20 as one of the songs featured on his Scary Hours mini EP. The song shot to the top of the Billboard charts and stayed on the top of the charts for 11 weeks before it was toppled by Nice For What, produced by Murda Beatz and released on April 6 by Young Money Entertainment and Cash Money Records.
The inclusion of God’s Plan and Nice For What in Scorpion is expected to boost its commercial success, with songs on the album having already been streamed by fans more than a billion times, according to Rolling Stone.
Scorpion, produced by Noah “40” Shebib and Oliver El-Khatib, also includes a guest appearance by Jay Z in the track Talk Up. Ty Dolla Sign and Static Major make guest appearances in After Dark. The album also features a posthumous appearance by Michael Jackson, in which he performs a previously unreleased vocal that leads to the hook for Don’t Matter to Me.
Other artists credited on Scorpion include rappers Nicki Minaj, Future, and 76-year-old Canadian singer Paul Albert Anka, best-known for his hit songs, Diana, (1957) Lonely Boy, (1958) and Put Your Head on My Shoulder (1959). Anka also co-wrote I Never Heard with Michael Jackson in 1983.
On multiple tracks in the new album, Drake appears to confirm rumors that he fathered a son with the adult movie star Sophie Brussaux. For instance, on the track Emotionless, he raps that “I wasn’t hiding my kid from the world/I was hiding the world from my kid.” On the track March 14, he appears to refer to his relationship with Brussaux by making a reference to Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.
“She’s not my lover like Billie Jean,” Drake raps, “but the kid is mine.”
Drake raps that DNA tests confirmed he was the father of the boy born on October 11, and that he celebrated when he confirmed the boy was his son. Fans will recall the rumor that Drake has fathered a child gained traction earlier in May when Pusha-T alleged in his song titled “The Story of Adidon,” that Drake was hiding a child he fathered with an adult movie star.
Drake’s latest solo album release comes on the heels of other major album releases, including Kanye West’s Ye, and Jay and Beyonce’s Everything Is Love. It also comes only a few weeks after Drake’s mentor Lil Wayne settled his long-running lawsuits with Universal Musical Group and Cash Money Records.
Multiple reports claimed Lil Wayne walked away with a big settlement rumored to be more than $10 million. Lil Wayne’s fans are now anticipating the release of his long-delayed Tha Carter V album before the end of this year.