Drake Week Is in Full Effect

Update 9/2: Drake offered a fun twist in his typical billboard this time around. Now in addition to signs in Toronto that feature lines from the album, last night hip-hop personality Elliott Wilson revealed new billboards had popped up teasing CLB's featured guests—in the artist's corresponding city. For example, in Atlanta the billboard reads “Hey Atlanta, Slime, Pluto, Savage and Baby Are on CLB." Slime and Pluto are Young Thug and Future, of course. Internet sleuths will remember that a couple of months ago footage of those three filming a video that allegedly recreated the Backstreet Boys' seminal video for “I Want It That Way” surfaced—perhaps we'll finally see the finished visual soon. (It's unclear if the Lil Baby feature just means “Wants and Needs,” their collab Drake released back in March, will have a home on the album.)

The geotag rollout revealed some exciting features, like Project Pat finally getting a proper collab after years of Drake interpolating the Memphis legend's bars and rap style, or featuring him in videos. And the phrasing of the Houston billboard—“The hometown hero is on the album"—has led to fun speculation about who that might mean. Legends like Bun B or Trae tha Truth? A more recent rapper who can still lay claim to that title like Travis Scott? Or could it be a swerve and Drake means he's got a feature from the Houston-bred queen of music, Beyoncé?

Speaking of The Carters, the New York billboard aptly reads: “Hey New York, The GOAT is on CLB.” Some people have joked that it cheekily could mean someone like Nicki Minaj, but longtime Jay-Z affiliate Lenny S reposting the billboard on his Instagram should be all the confirmation anyone needs. This would mark Drake and Jay-Z's fifth collaboration (no one really counts the one line Jay contributes to “Pop Style," as they shouldn't). In one of his last recent interviews, appearing on the Rap Radar podcast, Drake was candid about his and Jay's streak not being as sturdy as it should be—fans found their most recent offering, Scorpion's “Talk Up," underwhelming (fun Jay verse though). With Drake being aware that people want to hear straight bars from him and Jay, it's a safe bet that we'll get something closer to their gold standard collab, “Light Up.” But we'll just have to wait and see tonight. View the billboards below.

Original story below.

As one A-list album rollout ends, another begins. Kanye West’s Donda finally arrived officially on Sunday, and now Drake’s Certified Lover Boy is confirmed for release this Friday, September 3. There’s already a confirmed cover by the English artist Damien Hirst, and in general Drake’s rollout seems set to be more, well, fine-tuned than Kanye’s.

After Drake bragged on Trippie Redd’s recent track “Betrayal” that “Ye ain’t changin shit for me, it’s set in stone” (meaning CLB’s date was always locked in regardless of Kanye’s moves), the first clue came last Friday in the middle of ESPN’s SportsCenter no less. During the broadcast, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it image of someone holding a sign that read ‘CLB September 3’ flashed, with ESPN cheekily referring to it as a hack on their Twitter account. You can watch the moment here:

Now Drake has confirmed the date, along with the album cover, which features twelve pregnant women emojis. Naturally, speculation as to what this might mean already runs rampant.

For one, the rapper tagged the prolific English artist Damien Hirst in his Instagram post—GQ can confirm the cover is indeed a painting that Hirst made specifically for the album. An official Drake account, Drake Related, posted a photo of the artwork to Instagram--it has not been seen before--with the caption “1 of 2 by Damien Hirst,” seeming to imply either that there are only two copies of the piece, or that Hirst has another original that he designed for the album as well.

Others are parsing the image for meaning—does the number of emojis signify the number of tracks, meaning Drake finally made his first concise album since 2013’s Nothing Was the Same? (Something many fans have been begging him to return to for years.)

Meanwhile, in a move he's favored since 2016's Views, billboards have been popping up around Toronto that feature snippets of bars from the album.

It’s unclear how the rollout will progress between now and Thursday night. If no song is released before then, this would mark the first occasion that Drake has released an album proper (remember: by his own distinctions, he doesn’t consider If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and More Life albums) without a fresh single to buoy it. “What’s Next,” released in March, is aeons ago by Drake standards, to say nothing of the album’s initial single “Laugh Now, Cry Later,” which dropped over a year ago.

Both will still likely appear on the album (because streams) but regardless of how many tracks are on CLB, we know almost nothing about the majority of them, which is rare for Drake. That, coupled with the album’s numerous delays, during which it was rumored that Drake was retooling things, have only heightened anticipation for the finished product.

Drake’s personal photographer and frequent music video director Theo Skudra’s recent post has led fans to believe a new visual is imminent, perhaps for “Not Around,” a song Drake’s been teasing since last year. Either way, this is just the beginning of what will surely be a very long Drake Week.