Drake Had Three No. 1s This Year — What Does That Mean For The Future?

As ever, Drake remained inescapable in 2018. His vicious beef with Pusha T ended in an atomic dis track and the revelation of a secret son. He also helped orchestrate four wildly viral music videos with young visionary director Karena Evans. All that matters.


Although radio matters, also. As one of music's steadiest avenues for repeated exposure, it remains a substantial piece of the rapper's lasting dominance over pop culture. Drake has right now obliterated enough streaming records to essentially make platforms like Spotify and Apple Music into his playgrounds (e.G. His 2017 album mixtape playlist More Life). Yet radio? That's Drake's old standby. And both radio and streaming factor into chart performance.


"We've seen hip-hop have good chart runs before, especially in the early to mid-2000s. Then, American Idol came along and pop had a resurgence," Gary Trust, Billboard's co-director of charts, told MTV News in an email. "Still, this year seen a record 34 back-to-back weeks of rap hits at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 – three of these songs by Drake, accounting for 29 of these weeks – and with streaming being a major chart metric, and streaming being dominated by hip-hop, the sound does not seem in danger of disappearing. Plus, several current artists of countless genres grew up influenced heavily by hip-hop."


Case in point: Only 19 days into the year, Drake released "God's Plan," which you've right now heard over 600 times (alongside "Diplomatic Immunity," which you haven't). "God's Plan" predictably blew up, bolstered by $996,631.90 of visual philanthropy and relentless radio play. Both speedily helped Drake achieve his first Hot 100 No. 1 of the year. And somehow, that was just the start.


case in point, here at the year's end, Drake boasts two added No. 1s — "Nice for What" and "In My Feelings" — bringing his career total to six. That demonstrates half of these dropped this year alone. Of these three, "God's Plan" and "In My Feelings" spent double digits at the best of the chart, joining 2017 juggernaut hits like Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" and Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You."


"Drake has habitually shown off different sides to his music, from the begin, having arrived rapping on 'Best I Ever Had' and singing, really nicely, on 'Find Your Love,'" Trust mentioned. "Almost a decade later, that formula keeps it up and continues to work, for him and others, as 'God's Plan' and 'In My Feelings' update the ideal of 'Had' and 'Find,' respectively. That blend of rapping and singing accommodates bridge crowds and, thus, translates to chart success."


This is a lot of analysis, yet it assists the elucidate just how influential Drake remains a decade or so into his career. In April, immediately after "God's Plan" had been No. 1 for 11 weeks, it finally got bumped out of the best spot, obviously by Drake himself and "Nice for What." The dude's hits are so big that he can replace himself at the best of the charts, becoming piece of an elite class of just 12 other recording acts to have achieved the feat, including Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and The Beatles.


A big piece of how this happens, as Trust mentioned, is what those songs actually sound like. While the airy "God's Plan" kept a fundamentally trap skeleton (in line with much contemporary rap), "Nice for What" and "In My Feelings" delved into New Orleans bounce; the latter video even acted as a love letter to the city itself.


Drake paired each new song with a dynamic visual, the kind that makes a hell of a case for the continued existence of music videos overall. A major piece of his visual identity in 2018 was Evans, the 22-year-old director whose clips with Drake vibrate with life and portraiture. Soon after giving away a million dollars in Miami as segment of "God's Plan," Drake retreated out of frame so that Evans's "Nice for What" could come alive as an ode to strong women. By the time "In My Feelings" dropped in August, the song had already exploded thanks to Shiggy's challenge. All Drake had to do was show up wearing gold grills and charm his way out of a contentious encounter with Phylicia Rashad. Needless to say, the dude did. And his canny strategizing essentially guaranteed each song's coronation as a Event as an alternative opposed to just another single.


As if right on cue, Drake's achievements kept rolling in even as 2018 winded to a close. Tuesday (December 4) brought the news that he was both Spotify's most-streamed artist of the year — and with 8.2 billion new listens in 2018 alone, also the platform's most-streamed artist ever — and also Billboard's artist of the year. He also claimed that same title from Apple Music.


Let's not forget either that, the day before, the rapper had hit No. 1 again, this time as a featured visitor on Travis Scott's "Sicko Mode." Notably, the song is the opening No. 1 for Scott, and Drake's fourth appearance at the best this year. "Sicko Mode" is one of the greatest songs of the year, so it only makes sense that it dethroned another humongous, year-defining song in Ariana Grande's "Thank U, Next."


Nevertheless there's something just as potent in "Sicko Mode," whether it's Scott's oblique say of his maybe-wife Kylie Jenner or, who understands, maybe even Drake's "I did half a Xan, 13 hours 'til I land." He's long been a meme, soon after all.


That's just what you've got to do. Drake's known it for years. In 2018, it paid off with three mammoth No. 1s. Next year, nevertheless, nothing will be guaranteed. Drake's reign, Trust stressed, may be short-lived given how cyclical the trends represented on the chart tend to be.


"The end of the year has seen pop and rock make a little bit of a comeback, thanks to Panic! At the Disco's 'High Hopes' and Marshmello and Bastille's 'Happier,' among others," he mentioned. "And, even amid Drake's dominance, a country/pop hit reached No. 2 on the Hot 100: Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line's 'Meant to Be.' There's habitually room for a catchy pop hook."