Drake, 2017

Drake

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Drake Reveals Upcoming Release Date For New Album, 'Scorpion'

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The GRAMMY-winning rapper has officially begun promoting his next album release
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Apr 16, 2018 - 3:55 pm

Fresh off of dethroning himself from the No. 1 slot atop the Billboard Hot 100, replacing his own single "God's Plan" with the smash hit "Nice For What," and becoming just the 13th artist in history to replace their own No. 1 single atop the chart, GRAMMY-winning rapper Drake has begun to drop hints about his forthcoming fifth album Scorpion.

Celebrating his chart win, Drake hopped on Instagram on Monday to drop some good news for all the fans who've been patiently waiting for the Toronto native's next official LP release sing 2016's quadruple-platinum-certified Views.

 JUNE 2018

A post shared by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on

 JUNE 2018

A post shared by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on

While the pair of IG posts, both captioned "JUNE 2018," are the first tease of the album's title and release date, Drake did drop some additional hints during his appearance at a Toronto Raptors game in March, telling the hometown crowd at halftime, "I love each and every one of you …I’m happy to be home. I’m working on this new album for the city."

Details on the specific date in June when Scorpion will drop are still forthcoming.

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Drake

Drake

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Drake Rides 'Scorpion' To Eighth Straight No. 1, Earns 2018's Top Week

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With his new album release, the biggest of 2018, October's Own has the view from the summit once again
Philip Merrill
GRAMMYs
Jul 9, 2018 - 12:02 pm

Released on June 29, Drake's 25-track Scorpion double album tops the Billboard 200 chart for July 14 at No. 1, Drake's eighth consecutive album to do so. Its debut week broke more records, including some of Drake's own, but his eighth No. 1 ties him with the Beatles, Jay-Z and Kanye West.

Scorpion sold 160,000 traditional albums in its debut week, but these were digital downloads only because the physical CD doesn't drop until this Friday July 13. Counting in track equivalents and album equivalents online, it moved 732,000 equivalent albums — the biggest week in 2018 for any album release.

On-demand audio streams from Scorpion topped 745 million, another No. 1 of all-time statistic, surpassing the 431 million streams in Post Malone's late April debut for Beerbongs & Bentleys. Globally, on-demand streams passed 1 billion — a first-ever record for any album.

Among the top 10 weeks for on-demand audio streams, Drake's 2016 album Views was bumped down to No. 7, ever, with 245 million. His 2017 More Life release is at No. 3 with 384 million, for its debut, as well as at No. 7 with 253 million in its second week on sale. We'll see what the physical CD's release does to Drake's numbers next week.

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Drake

Drake

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Listen: Drake's New Double Album 'Scorpion' Is Here

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After months of buildup and three singles, the GRAMMY-winning rapper's fifth album finally arrives
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jun 29, 2018 - 7:41 am

Anticipation has been mounting all year for Drake's fifth album, Scorpion. Today, the wait is finally over as the Canadian rapper's new double album arrived.

Scorpion includes three previously released singles. "God's Plan" came first as part of Drake's Scary Hours EP in January. The song went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and held strong in that spot, making Drake the first male solo artist in history to keep more than one single in the chart's top spot for double-digit weeks. "God's Plan" appears as the fifth track on the first "disc" of Scorpion.

"Nice For What" dropped in April, featuring a sample of Lauryn Hill's "Ex-Factor" and dethroning "God's Plan" at No. 1. In May, Drake released the third single from Scorpion, "I'm Upset," which he followed with a nostalgic video for the song focused around a cast reunion of "Degrassi: The Next Generation," the Canadian teen television drama he acted on a decade ago. "I'm Upset" follows "God's Plan" as track six on disc one, while "Nice For What" anchors disc two of Scorpion as track four.

With 25 tracks total, Scorpion defies the Kanye West-led trend of releasing relatively short albums – in West's case, all of his recent releases as a producer or artist from the "Wyoming Session" have either seven or eight tracks. West also recently revealed Drake was indeed a co-writer on "Yikes" from Ye.

Drake also used featured guests sparingly on Scorpion, but the album does feature Jay-Z on "Talk Up," Static Major and Ty Dolla $ign on "After Dark," and even a posthumous appearance from Michael Jackson on "Don't Matter To Me."

Drake is all set to head out on tour in support of Scorpion. The Aubrey And The Three Amigos North American tour with Migos kicks off July 26 in Salt Lake City and wraps in Atlanta on Nov. 17. For a full list of dates and ticket info, visit Drake's website.

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Nas, 2018

Nas

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Nas Dropping New Album In June, Produced Entirely By Kanye West

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The album announcement adds to a stacked lineup of forthcoming new albums produced by West, to be released consecutively over five weeks
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Apr 23, 2018 - 12:32 pm

June 2018 will official mark the welcome return of Yeezy Season. After returning to Twitter earlier this month to spout philosophy and finally announce new music, GRAMMY-winning rapper/producer Kanye West still had one more bombshell to drop on his salivating fanbase: a new album from legendary New York rapper Nas, produced entirely by West himself.

The upcoming, as-yet-untitled Nas album will be the Brooklyn rapper's 12th studio LP, but his first release since 2012's Life If Good, ending the longest creative hiatus of his career since first releasing Illmatic in 1994.

For his own part, West seems intent on making up for lost time, as he has now announced a total of five albums, including his hotly-anticipated eighth solo album and a new surprise collaboration with Kid Cudi as Kids See Ghost, for which the Chicago native assumed all production duties. The albums are set for release once a week for five consecutive week throughout late May and on through June.

Altogether, fans can expect new music from Pusha T on May 25; the new, still-untitled Kanye West album on June 1; Kids See Ghost with Kid Cudi on June 8; Nas on June 15; and Teyana Taylor on June 22.

Details on all five albums, including first audio teases, remain forthcoming.

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Kanye West, 2016

Kanye West

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Kanye West Sets Internet Afire By Announcing Release Of Two New Albums

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Yeezus returns with release date announcements for a new solo album and a new collaboration
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Apr 19, 2018 - 2:47 pm

Amid Kanye West's ongoing social experiment that's seen him writing a book on philosophy by tweeting it one post at a time, the GRAMMY-winning rapper has ignited a firestorm by apparently announcing the release dates of not one, but two new albums, both set to drop during the first week of June.

Kanye West Wins Best Rap Album

Following a lengthy hiatus from social media – during which he ostensibly retreated to the mountains of Wyoming to begin crafting his latest opus with the help of Kid Cudi, Nas, Travis Scott, Drake, and others – Yeezus resurrected his Twitter account, previously dormant for 11 months, and began hurling psalm-like advice and other inscrutable tweets into the social ether.

During a recent interview with his interior design collaborator Axel Vervoordt in The Hollywood Reporter, West expounded further on his newfound Zen, saying "We do these sneakers that sell out and [people say], 'Oh, this is the number one brand' ... and I don't wish to be number one anymore, I wish to be water."

Over the days since the April 13 interview, West has continued his enigmatic tweets, trading deadpan assertions such as "trend is always late," and "stop lyin about s***. Just stop lyin" with longer missives like, "let's be less concerned with ownership of ideas. It is important that ideas see the light of day even if you don't get the credit for them. Let's be less concerned with credit awards and external validation."

All of which brings us finally to today, where just hours ago West dropped the bombshell(s) across a rapid-fire series of four tweets:

And, of course, the web immediately lit up with speculation.  Already the unofficial Kanye West subreddit has a stickied thread titled ALBUM HYPE, and articles are likely being written or already live on every major music publication as we speak.

According to Pitchfork, West filed trademark paperwork for "Kids See Ghost" for, "coverage of everything from merch to streaming services to films and TV shows," leading us to question whether West's plan for his collaboration with Cudi will come as a follow-up of sorts to his previous GRAMMY-winning supergroup-style teamwork with Jay-Z as heard on Watch The Throne.

Details on official titles for both West's new solo album and his forthcoming matchup with Kid Cudi remain forthcoming, but at the time of this writing, West has also revealed that a long-awaited new album from Pusha T and new music from Teyana Taylor will be released on May 25 and June 22, respectively.

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