Drake is gearing up for the release of a new music video after dropping his highly anticipated Views album last week, taking to Instagram on Saturday to reveal to fans that his new single, “One Dance,” will serve as the first official music video release for his fourth studio album.
Drake delivered the news via Instagram last night following the Toronto Raptors’ victory over the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals, telling fans that he was unable to attend the game in Miami due to conflicts with his filming schedule for the upcoming music video, HotNewHipHop reports.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFIAO5vjQFu/
“On set for ‘One Dance’ and it’s killing me that I am missing these games!!!” Drake wrote in the caption of his Instagram photo before praising the team for their 2-1 series lead in the conference.
While rumors initially suggested that “Summer Sixteen” would serve as a follow-up to Drake’s immensely popular “Hotline Bling” music video that dropped back in October, the track ultimately didn’t make the final cut for the rapper’s new album.
Despite its April 5 release, “One Dance” continues to hold steady at the No. 2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, leading some to speculate over whether or not a music video release for the track will help Drake achieve his first No. 1 single in the U.S.
Drake is (probably) getting his first No. 1 single with #OneDance https://t.co/7U8AeTjRyp pic.twitter.com/pO5lUt7DfV
— Fuse TV (@fusetv) May 2, 2016
Drake came close to nabbing the No. 1 spot back in October following the release of his “Hotline Bling” music video, however, the rapper was unable to dethrone The Weeknd’s chart-topping single “The Hills” despite racking up millions of views for the video in its first week.
Much of the blame for his missed No. 1 fell on Drake’s exclusivity deal with Apple Music given the fact that the streaming service does not report its video views to Nielsen Music and ultimately prevented the millions of video views for “Hotline Bling” from being counted towards Billboard’s chart rankings, Business Insider reports.
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While Drake may have missed the No. 1 spot with “Hotline Bling,” the anticipation surrounding the arrival of Drake’s Views album has already translated into big numbers for Apple’s streaming service. On Saturday, Forbes reported that Drake’s fourth studio album sold an astonishing 851,000 copies in its first week, with over half of those copies having been sold on its first day alone. The success of Views’ debut makes Drake the first male artist in three years to see such high-volume sales with a first-week release, ranking behind Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience , which debuted with 968,000 in sales in 2013.
Similarly, with “Hotline Bling” currently sitting at over 715,000,000 views on Vevo, it seems likely that Drake will capture the No. 1 spot following the release of his impending “One Dance” music video, although the rapper has yet to specify a release date for the project.
Drake is returning to #SNL as host & musical guest https://t.co/HvAECWgHen pic.twitter.com/rCKFrWvseM
— billboard (@billboard) May 5, 2016
The news comes just days after reports confirmed that Drake will appear as both a host and a musical guest on the May 14 episode of Saturday Night Live , which will serve as a follow-up to his first appearance on the NBC series in 2014, where he performed tracks “From Time” and “Hold On, We’re Going Home” alongside Jhene Aiko. While there’s currently no confirmation of Drake’s set list for the late-night program, it seems likely that “One Dance” will be included in the performance given the news of its impending music video.
What do you think of Drake making “One Dance” his first music video release from Views ?
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]