It’s also worth noting that Drake’s album sales were hitting Weezy-level numbers by his second album, Take Care, in an age where album sales are much harder to come by because of rabid single and video consumption. Jay-Z – 9 (not nearly as many total feature verses as the other two, fwiw).Drake – 28 (and Weezy had a 10-year head start!).So, when it’s noted that Drake has more RIAA-platinum singles as a lead artist (43) than Lil Wayne (20) and Jay-Z (17) combined, his chart dominance becomes very hard to ignore.Īlso Peep: Album-equivalent units are not “cheating”įor more fun facts, here are the platinum plaque counts to date for each artist as a featured artist: But just know that Drake doesn’t go quadruple-Diamond every time he reaches 100 million streams on a single. I’m not here to convince you if those equivalencies are fair or not. 1 album sale = 10 tracks sold from album = 1,500 on-demand audio/video streams.1 song sale = 150 on-demand audio/video streams.According to this 2018 piece on Drake’s record-breaking digital sales, here are the equivalencies: The streaming success of Drake is so obnoxious, we have to ask if such a playing field gives artists of today a clear commercial edge over artists who were in their primes pre-streaming.īillboard has been a reliable source on the industry’s transition into counting streams and music video views as record sales.
Since his music is hauling in streams by the millions every day, it makes sense that the claimed sales number from Drake’s camp will update less frequently than the certified number.
The role of streaming: cheat code or just different?Īs mentioned earlier, Drake’s certified units sold is a remarkable 260+ million. Considering how much later he started than Jay and mentor Wayne, that is incredible There’s no one left in hip-hop for him to pass up.
The only person who can compete with Drake in the first generation of streaming-age artists is Rihanna (“You go up higher than meeee somedays,” -Drake, “My Side”).Drake’s digital sales are too insane right now for the claimed sales to keep up.Meanwhile, rap grandfather Jay-Z and Drake’s mentor Lil Wayne have certified unit and claimed sales numbers that are roughly matching: This is definitely the case with Drake, who’s certified units are actually more than two times his claimed sales. Because digital stores and streaming services changed the game of sale certification, the “certified units” numbers of highly-active artists post-2010 can be enormous.
What better way to start than by comparing the cold, hard record sales numbers of Drake and two legends he’s heavily linked to, Weezy and Jay-Z? How We’re Keeping ScoreĪs explained in my Rih/Bey piece, a “record sale” is a physical or digital sale (including stream or view accumulation), of singles, albums, and music videos. Given his longevity, his seemingly unending commercial peak, and that uninspired “Best In The World Pack” he dropped, I think it’s time to work a little harder in finding Drake’s place in music history. Regardless of your stance on him, Drake is someone you have to keep track of if you care at all about the music game. That being said, I can confidently say I’m writing this piece in pursuit of both a necessary checkpoint for the culture and numbers for ATC.