Drake’s “God’s Plan” Debuts At #1
Despite operating as rap and R&B’s center of gravity for most of this decade, Drake struggled long and hard to score a #1 single as a lead artist. He hit #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 with 2009 breakthrough “Best I Ever Had” and probably would have gone #1 with “Hotline Bling” in 2015 if he’d released the meme-ready music video to YouTube instead of Apple Music, which doesn’t report video streams to Nielsen. Along the way he went to #1 twice as a featured artist on Rihanna tracks (“Say My Name” and “Work”), but he didn’t reach the summit as a lead artist until “One Dance” in 2016. And now, seemingly without even trying, he has a second #1 single to his name.
Billboard reports that “God’s Plan,” one of the two songs Drake released two weekends back as part of an EP called Scary Hours, has entered the Hot 100 on top. It’s the 29th song to debut at #1 in the history of the Hot 100 and the first since DJ Khaled’s “I’m The One” last year.
The other Scary Hours track, “Diplomatic Immunity,” begins at #7, making Drake the first artist to debut two songs in the top 10 simultaneously twice. Previously he debuted More Life tracks “Passionfruit” and “Portland” at #8 and #9 last April. The only other artist to debut two songs in the top 10 simultaneously is Ed Sheeran, who did so with #1 “Shape Of You” and #6 “Castle On The Hill” in January 2017. I once wrote that he and Drake have a lot in common.
So… does Rabit’s graphic designer get a cut of the royalties?