The Number Ones: Drake’s “What’s Next”

In The Number Ones, I'm reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart's beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. The column is now biweekly, alternating with The Alternative Number Ones on Mondays. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

"There's no need to dress up the numbers." That's something that Drake said on "What's Next," his umpeenth #1 hit on the Hot 100. He was talking about his chart numbers, and he was right. The numbers were ridiculous. Here's how Drake laid it out: "I'm on the Hot One Hundo, numero uno, this shit ain't come with a bundle." That was true, too. Drake's collaborator and contemporary Travis Scott could lob absolute nothings onto the pop charts and still debut at #1, but he had to attach them to merch drops or personalized Happy Meals or whatever. Drake, meanwhile, could lob absolute nothings onto the pop charts and debut at #1 without doing any of that. That was the flex.

The flex was boring. Even Drake sounded like he was bored with it. When you can rack up chart-toppers without trying, where's the thrill? A year before "What's Next," Drake debuted at #1 with "Toosie Slide," a sleepy, desultory shot at TikTok-dance virality that Drake didn't even seem to like. That song was ass, but it did numbers. "What's Next" is not ass. It might be more interesting if it were ass. Instead, it's just another half-decent Drake song. Writing about "What's Next" at the time, I almost talked myself into it. My thinking was: Drake is an inevitable force, so I might as well find something to like in whatever he deigns to drop. It was a coping mechanism, I guess.

In 2021, the Drake moment looked like it might never end. He'd solidified his spot atop the rap hierarchy, and he could just lounge around up there, lording over everyone else for as long as he wanted. Drake would sometimes snarl vaguely about all the people waiting on his downfall, but he sounded fully convinced that this downfall would never arrive. The numbers kept backing him up. The week after he released "What's Next," Drake became the first artist ever to have songs debut in the top three spots on the Hot One Hundo. He'd released those three songs as appetizers, or maybe as apologies for the fact that his hyped-up album Certified Lover Boy hadn't arrived on time.

Five-ish years later, the title Certified Lover Boy is mostly remembered as the setup for a withering punchline on a song that'll eventually appear in this column. Drake's downfall turned out to be a lot faster and more dramatic than anyone could've anticipated. People were so excited for it to happen, and the resentment that comes with sustained, effortless success had a lot to do with that. That downfall, which is by no means permanent, is a story for another column. Drake couldn't go on making perfunctory hits like "What's Next" forever. He got away with it for a long time, though.

Drake started teasing Certified Lover Boy in 2020. For a while, he had a stupid-looking heart shaved into his hair. His haircut was part of the promotional strategy, or at least I think it was. I can't imagine any other reason he would've voluntarily gotten his picture taken looking like that. Another part of the promo strategy was the minute-long video that Drake posted on social media in October 2020. It's still standard practice to introduce a big rap record with that kind of faux-epic montage. Future Number Ones artist J. Cole just did one. In this particular video, Drake promised Certified Lover Boy in January 2021. But January came and went, and there was no Certified Lover Boy. (Every time I type that title, my brain barks back "certified [something else]!" I bet yours does the same when you read it.)

When it became clear that Certified Lover Boy would not meet its deadline, Drake went on Instagram and said that he was still recovering from knee surgery, which he needed after a still-mysterious injury. Instead of dropping a full album, he stoked anticipation with the March release of Scary Hours 2, a three-song EP. The first Scary Hours was a two-song release in 2018, and one of those songs was "God's Plan," which stayed on top of the Hot 100 for what felt like forever. Scary Hours 2 felt like an event simply because it was a new Drake record. At the time, the mere existence of a new Drake record was enough to dethrone Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" after a couple of months.

We'll get to the other two tracks on Scary Hours 2, the ones that debuted at #2 and #3. Those songs were simply Drake doing Drake things, but they at least had some big-name collaborators and some energy to them. "What's Next," the one that got its one week at #1 before it made a quick exit, didn't have those things. Even the song's two producers weren't especially famous. Beat, hooks, lyrics — none of them were special in any way. I maintain that "What's Next" did those numbers simply because it was the first track on the EP.

"What's Next" started as a beat from Jonathan Priester, a producer from South Carolina who goes by the name Supah Mario. Supah Mario got his start working with past and future Number Ones artist Young Thug when Thug was back in his mixtape days. He got his first Drake credit when he co-produced the Young Thug collab "Ice Melts" in 2018. ("Ice Melts" peaked at #62.) Supah Mario made his original "What's Next" beat at a time when he was just cranking out music, not working on assignment. He considered the beat to be a "throwaway," as he later told Billboard, and he sent it to Drake along with a bunch of other tracks he'd made, labeling it a "Playboi Carti type beat." Drake liked it enough that he told Mario not to give it to anyone else.

Supah Mario says that his original "What's Next" beat was busier than the version that ultimately came out. Toronto producer and regular Drake collaborator Maneesh Bidaye, known professionally as just Maneesh, stripped away a bunch of those sounds away and added a few more. (Mario says that Maneesh did "the chants on top of the beat, and a little whistle you hear in the background.") Supah Mario and Maneesh are the song's two credited producers, and Drake, Mario, and Maneesh are the three songwriters. There are no samples on the track, and it's not really a product of Drake's little song factory.

"What's Next" doesn't really sound like a Playboi Carti-type beat to me, but I can see why Supah Mario labelled it that way. At the time, the brittle, nervously energetic tracks that Carti preferred were the latest updates to the A-list rapper formula. (Carti will eventually appear in this column.) The main element of the "What's Next" beat is a clipped, staticky synth riff, which works to make the track sound jittery but not quite urgent. Along with those synths, the track has the standard hissing hi-hats and 808 bass-thuds. It's what you'd expect. It sounds fine.

Drake's performance on "What's Next" is also what you'd expect, and it also sounds fine. As a rapper, Drake has presence even when he's sleepwalking, which he definitely is here. Lyrically, "What's Next" is another rote recitation of all the things that Drake has and you don't. He's got a fancy watch that only has two copies, and the late designer Virgil Abloh has the other one. He sits in the box where the owners do. He's in the Wynn, a million in chocolate chips, and that's just how his cookie crumbles.

The image of Drake partying in Las Vegas reminds me of the one guy in Pluribus who — skip to the end of this paragraph if you've been waiting around to watch Pluribus — uses the drone-people around him to play out James Bond scenarios and doesn't seem to mind that it's all empty charade and nobody is excited. I almost wish Drake would brag about John Cena teaching him the sunset flip powerbomb. Anyway, you get it. It's fine. "What's Next" is nothing exceptional, but Drake had conditioned us to expect nothing-exceptional songs.

What's not fine is the hook. the chorus of "What's Next" is lazy even by Drake standards. It's this: "Well, summer, all I did was rest, OK?/ And New Year's, all I did was stretch, OK?/ And Valentine's Day, I had sex, OK?/ We'll see what's 'bout to happen next, OK? OK? OK?" OK! Obviously, the best part of this whole thing is "Valentine's Day, I had sex, OK?" Congratulations, Drake. Good job.

And that's it! That's the whole hook! There are some other parts that repeat. Drake has a couple of lines about "I heard that you were givin' your chain away, that's kinda like givin' your fame away." At this point, we can say pretty clearly that those lines were directed at former Number Ones artist Pharrell. I don't think we knew that at the time, though. Whatever. Doesn't matter. Point is: "What's Next" doesn't really express anything. It has no compelling reason to exist. It's just more product, more content, from someone who couldn't stand to go away for long. It's not terrible. It's just nothing.

I liked the other two Scary Hours 2 tracks better. "Wants And Needs," track two, is the one that debuted at #2. It's a stormy, menacing Cardo track with a verse from Lil Baby, who was on fire at the time. Drake is a lot more locked-in, too. He finds a pocket on that one. Maybe Drake just needed a hungry rapper on there to find some hunger in himself. (Lil Baby's highest-charting single as lead artist is 2020's "The Bigger Picture," which peaked at #3. It's a 9. As a guest, Baby has been as high as #2 three times, and "Wants And Needs" is my favorite of the three. It's a 6. The other two are the 2021 Drake collab "Girls Want Girls," a 3, and the 2022 Nicki Minaj collab "Do We Have A Problem?," a 5.)

Track three from Scary Hours is "Lemon Pepper Freestyle," the one that peaked at #3. It's the best of them. On that one, Drake and his middle-aged buddy Rick Ross both just bar out for six minutes. They just talk about their own fiduciary security, but they make it sound good. Drake and Ross always brought the best out of each other. For a while, people were pushing for them to make a collaborative album. It never happened. They never made another song together after "Lemon Pepper Freestyle." Today, they hate each other. Drake seems to have that effect on a lot of his collaborators. ("Lemon Pepper Freestyle" is the highest-charting single with a Rick Ross guest verse. It's a 7. Ross' highest-charting single as lead artist, the 2008 T-Pain collab "The Boss," peaked at #17.)

Today, both "Wants And Needs" and "Lemon Pepper Freestyle" have more YouTube streams than "What's Next," even though "What's Next" is the only one with a music video. It's a pretty cool video, too, a Theo Skudra-directed black-and-white Toronto travelogue that makes the city look incredibly glamorous. Today, "Wants And Needs" is quintuple platinum, and the other two Scary Hours 2 tracks don't have any certifications. I don't know why. The numbers would probably justify it. Maybe Drake or Universal just didn't want to pay the RIAA for that. In any case, "What's Next" stayed in the top 10 for two more weeks before disappearing from my brain forever.

Before prepping for this column, I barely remembered that "What's Next" existed. Now that the column is done, I've almost completely forgotten about it again. This is a short column this week because there just isn't that much to say. Really, that's the problem. Drake made too many sleepy-ass disappearing hits, taking advantage of too many algorithms and chart-optimization tools, putting up too many numbers. I wouldn't resent all that success if the music was exciting and memorable, and the best Drake music really was exciting and memorable. It's easy to forget now, but he was the man for a while. But "What's Next" is not exciting or memorable. In the moment, its sheer mediocrity did nothing to dim Drake's star. What's next is that Autopilot Drizzy will appear in this column again. His time wasn't up yet, but it was coming.

GRADE: 4/10

BONUS BEATS: There are no "What's Next" Bonus Beats because "What's Next" wasn't memorable enough to inspire any Bonus Beats. But there are some "Lemon Pepper Freestyle" Bonus Beats, so let's go with that instead. Here's a "Lemon Pepper Freestyle" freestyle from Drake friend-turned-foe-turned-friend Meek Mill:

(As luck would have it, Meek Mill's highest-charting single is a Drake collab: 2019's "Going Bad," which peaked at #6. It's a 7.)

The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal The History Of Pop Music is out now via Hachette Books. Buy it here, OK? OK? OK?