With Drake set to pick up where he left off as the undeniable king of music streams, with the release of his More Life playlist on Saturday, March 18, comes the timely announcement that the Toronto rap star is officially being recognized as the first artist to ever earn 10 billion streams on Spotify.
Drake's last studio album in and of itself accounts for a decent chunk of those plays, having topped 2 billion streams by its own merits. He's also got several heavy hitter singles that have helped him arrive at the remarkable plateau, including "Once Dance," which has 1 billion plays all on its own.
By now there is little doubt that his career corresponding with the rise of music's new system of consumer metrics, is becoming a theme synonymous with Drake's work. One year ago he released Views and benefited as all news Drake, on every platform from Instagram to Youtube and the bevy of hip-hop publications online indeed garnered the page clicks and impressions to give it one of the longest chart-topping streaks in Billboard history. Now comes his More Life project, which would likely have been called a mixtape only the year before last, but is being branded a "Play List," which in marketing terms legitimizes the music streaming business.
While Views was released as an Apple Music exclusive, Drizzy's camp announced this week that the new project will be streamed across platforms, which might actually empower it to dish units in a faster manner than Views did, although it doesn't have the power singles that the last album had, behind it. ["Hotline Bling" completely broke the internet and truly took meme/vine generated singles popularity to new heights].
While nobody sharing in the company of having 10 billion streams is quite an achievement, Drake has actually been Spotify's top guy for nearly a year already, ever since it was announced that he had surpassed Justin Bieber as the service's most streamed artist ever, back in May of 2016.
