Drake’s fourth studio album set to drop in April
By Liz Reichart // A&E Editor
2015 was undeniably a colossal year for Drake, who has catapulted into international fame after the release of two mix tapes, “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” and “What a Time to be Alive.” Despite the massive amount of material he has released recently, music fans eagerly twitch on the edges of their seats anticipating a fourth studio album from the hip-hop and rap giant, after 2013 brought us Drake’s “Nothing Was The Same.” It appears Drake will give his fans the project that he’s been working on for three years, “Views From the 6,” sometime in early April, but any details beyond this are murky at best. Will it be another smash hit for the Toronto native? Here’s what we know about “Views From the 6” so far:
July 2014 – Chris Brown and Drake are spotted in the studio together and four days after the sighting, Drake hints that he has a new project in the works in his track “0-100/The Catch Up.” These events sparked rumors that Brown and Drake were collaborating on new material.
April 2015 – Drake states that he only has two completed tracks for “Views From the 6” that he likes (one of which was a collaboration with Beyoncé) in an interview with Four Pins magazine.
May 2015 – “Can I,” an unfinished Drake track featuring Beyoncé, leaks onto several indistinct Soundcloud accounts. He debuts the track five months later for fans on OVO Sound radio.
November 2015 – A mysterious billboard pops up in Toronto with the slogan “The 6 God is watching.” This sets off more release rumors, as no doubt this is a reference to Drake’s new album.
January 2016 – Drake tells a Miami crowd that “the six is coming very soon.” Only one week after this declaration, longtime Drake producer Noah “40” Shebib posts an Instagram insinuating that “Views From the 6” is in its closing stages of production. At the end of the month, Drake drops the sizzling single from the new album, “Summer Sixteen.” On the OVO Sound Radio show, Drake confirms that the album will drop “sometime in April.”
February 2016 – Shebib interviews with the New York Times about “Views From the 6,” saying that “It’s going to be what everybody expects and wants from Drake and from us…A lot of introspection, very vivid. He’s discovering new flows, new cadences, new patterns… I’m trying to find ways to pull more untraditional sounds in, to push the boundaries a little further.”
March 2016 – Drake posts four successive Instagrams from his account @champagnepapi with the caption reading “Homestretch,” no doubt in reference to the finishing touches on his album.
“Views From the 6” is poised to be biggest drop since Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” in February 2016. Will “Views” bring about a rekindling of the Meek Mill feud? Will Drake stay true to the rap project he told his producers he ardently desired to work on after his 2013 album, or will we see more of the experimental work rooted in his recent mix tapes? Now all fans can do is wait, and the hip-hop star has kindly released plenty of material in the past year to pass the time with. One can only wonder if the amount of music Drake puts out is actually overwhelming rather than ultimately satisfying, but who could ever complain about too much Drake? Certainly not a devoted fan base waiting to see what’s next from this titan of sound.