Drake made a surprise appearance at Wireless Festival in London after DJ Khaled did a last-minute cancellation of his headline set on Sunday due to “travel issues”.
Fans were irritated by DJ Khaled’s “poor” excuse and were quickly to point out that a mere 14 hours earlier he had posted a photo on his Instagram with the caption: “Still on vacation!!!!”
“Due to travel issues DJ Khaled will not be performing but we are working on something special that won’t disappoint,” the statement from Wireless read, promising they were working on “something special” as a replacement.
Confirming earlier rumours, that something special turned out to be Drake. The hip hop star, who just released his record-breaking new album Scorpion, sent fans wild as he appeared on stage in front of the OVO logo with a Union Jack wing to perform tracks include “I’m Upset” and “Nice For What”. He closed the festival with "God's Plan".
Drake managed to shatter several new music industry records upon the release of his latest album Scorpion. Shortly after it dropped on Spotify, the streaming service announced that streams of the record were hitting 10m per hour. By the end of Friday 29 June, it had reportedly been streamed around 132m times, breaking Post Malone's previous record with his album Beerbongs & Bentleys by a whopping 50m streams.
A representative for Apple Music confirmed to Variety that the album broke its own single day streaming record, with more than 170m streams, meaning Drake had beaten his own previous record of 89.9m streams for the mixtape More Life. It also became the first album to hit 1bn streams in a single week.
It was the No.1 album on Apple Music's charts in 92 countries almost immediately upon its release, with all 25 tracks occupying the top 25 spots on Apple Music, knocking XXXTentacion's posthumous No.1 “SAD!” down to No.26.
Scorpion has received mixed reviews from critics, with many singling out a few standout tracks but also commenting how the album feels disjointed and too long at 25 songs.
The Independent awarded the record 3 out of a possible 5 stars and said it was “frustrating how Drake either doesn't understand or refuses to acknowledge that, more often than not, his releases are far longer than necessary”.
“[Scorpion] is tailored for the streaming age; the tracks are designed to be lifted and applied to playlists for certain moods,” the review continued, “rather than songs that flow and create one cohesive feeling... it really doesn't have much of a sting in its tail.”
