Views feels like the culmination of his life-long love affair with Toronto, as well as his first serious bid for global domination. Related: Adrian Lee on why Drake’s Views is both a triumph and a let-down

“He’s really worked it into the fabric of his music in a lyrical sense, and now increasingly in a sonic sense too.” “Drake has been aggressive with his civic boosterism throughout his career,” says Jamieson Cox, a writer for The Verge and Pitchfork who has kept an eye on Drake since he first started making music after leaving his role as Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi: The Next Generation. Drawing from a number of hip-hop hotbeds, especially the sweltering haze of Houston rap, Drake’s sound grew into what is now known as the “Toronto sound,” an aqueous and reflective form that prioritizes wide-open spaces and sombre moods, the perfect backdrop for the Millennial angst that Drake has made his name peddling. The city and how it shaped him became more of a focal point in his lyrics (“My heart is cold, it’s probably ’cause I’m from the snow” he raps on 2015’s “6 Man”). And the much-anticipated album finds Drake digging deeper into his hometown for inspiration.Įach project since Drake’s 2010 major label debut Thank Me Later has felt progressively more indebted to Toronto. Released after the longest gestation period of any of his albums yet-partly explained by the two projects he released last year, the retail mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and What a Time to Be Alive, a collaborative mixtape with Atlanta rapper Future-Views has a lot riding on it. That he happens to be a mixed-race Jewish-Canadian former child actor who sings as much as he raps only adds to the novelty.

Not only is it the first proper album from the Toronto native since he became the biggest rapper on the planet, it also marks the first post-coronation statement after a Canadian rapper has assumed the throne. Views, Drake’s fourth album and his first since 2013’s Nothing Was the Same, carries a double distinction. The cover of Drake’s new album The Views.

Drake views from the 6 album sales