“Certified Lover Boy” is the sixth studio album by Canadian rapper Drake. It was released on September 3.
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the new album.
- Certified Lover Boy is the sixth studio album by Canadian rapper Drake
- It was released on September 3, 2021, through OVO Sound and Republic Records
- The album was initially set to be released in January 2021
- It was delayed
- It features guest appearances by Lil Baby, Lil Durk, Giveon, Jay-Z, Travis Scott, Future, Young Thug, Yebba, 21 Savage, Project Pat, Tems, Ty Dolla Sign, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and Kid Cudi
- Thematically, Drake explained that Certified Lover Boy is “a combination of toxic masculinity and acceptance of truth which is inevitably heartbreaking”
- In April 2019, Drake announced at a concert that he had started to work on a new album
- In June 2019, he teased the album via Instagram, where he captioned a post with “Album mode”
- On December 10, Drake made a guest appearance at DaBaby’s concert in Toronto, where he revealed that he was working on the album
- In March, on Instagram Live, Drake confirmed a finalized version of “Not Around”, a leaked song later retitled to “TSU”, would feature on Certified Lover Boy
- That same month, frequent collaborator Boi-1da previewed two snippets of songs with Drake during a Verzuz with Hit-Boy
- The two snippets were dubbed “I Did” and another snippet with Roddy Ricch was dubbed “In the Cut”
- Drake officially announced his sixth studio album just hours before the release of Dark Lane Demo Tapes, and scheduled for release in late 2020
- Drake later previewed two new songs, one an unreleased track titled “Lie to Me” and the other a demo version of his 2020 DJ Khaled collaboration “Greece”, on Instagram Live
- On July 29, 2020, Drake’s recording engineer Noel Cadastre revealed the album was “90% done”
- On August 14, 2020, Drake announced the title of the album
- In October, Drake announced that the album would be released in January 2021
- It was postponed once again due to Drake suffering an anterior cruciate ligament injury
- Certified Lover Boy was dedicated to the late models Nadia Ntuli and Miss Mercedes Morr
- Ntuli, who was a close friend of Drake’s, was killed in a motor vehicle accident in Dubai in early 2021
- Morr, born Janae Gagnier, was found dead in her Texas apartment on August 29, 2021
- She was believed to be the victim of a murder-suicide
- On May 1, 2020, Drake surprise-released his mixtape Dark Lane Demo Tapes, which was announced mere hours before its release
- In the mixtape announcement shared on Instagram, Drake revealed that his sixth studio album, then untitled, would be released sometime in the third quarter of 2020
- Although the album was not released that summer, the non-album single “Laugh Now Cry Later” featuring Lil Durk was released in August
- On October 24, a teaser trailer for the album was released, revealing that the album was to be released in January 2021
- American football player Odell Beckham Jr. later said it would be released on January 1, 2021, which later went unreleased
- The teaser referenced covers of Drake’s previous albums and mixtapes: So Far Gone (2009), Take Care (2011), Nothing Was the Same (2013) and Dark Lane Demo Tapes (2020)
- Drake announced in January 2021 that the album would no longer be released that month, due to a leg injury he sustained which required surgery
- On March 5, 2021, Drake released an extended play titled Scary Hours 2, a sequel to the 2018 EP, to generate further anticipation for the upcoming album
- The EP included three songs, and includes guest appearances from Lil Baby and Rick Ross
- The music video for the EP’s lead single, “What’s Next”, premiered on the same day
- All three songs from the EP respectively debuted at number one, two and three on the Billboard Hot 100
- In April, Drake appeared on the YSL Records song “Solid” with Gunna and Young Thug
- The song was originally intended for Certified Lover Boy, but because the album was postponed, Drake gave the song to Gunna
- On August 27, the album’s release date of September 3 was revealed during a teaser aired on ESPN’s SportsCenter
- Drake later confirmed the date and revealing the album artwork on August 30
- That same day, billboards featuring lyrics from the album were plastered around Drake’s hometown of Toronto
- On September 1, two days before the album’s release, billboards were placed throughout the United States, Canada, and Nigeria revealing the album’s featured artists according to their hometown
- An Atlanta billboard announced 21 Savage, Future, Lil Baby, and Young Thug, a Chicago billboard announced Lil Durk
- A New York City billboard announced “the GOAT”, which was assumed, and later confirmed, to be Jay-Z
- A Memphis billboard announced Yebba and Project Pat, while Tems was announced on a Lagos billboard
- Both Giveon and Ty Dolla Sign were announced on a California billboard
- As the reveal continued, a Cleveland billboard announced Kid Cudi
- A Miami billboard announced Rick Ross, cited as “the biggest boss”
- A Houston billboard announced Travis Scott, referred to as “the hometown hero”
- And another Toronto billboard announced Lil Wayne, who Drake coined as the “best rapper alive”
- The album’s artwork features twelve emojis of pregnant women in varying clothing colours, hair colors and skin tones
- It was designed by English artist Damien Hirst
- The artwork was met with a negative reception from fans and critics alike, who called the image “ugly”, “lazy”, and “ridiculous”
- Certified Lover Boy was met with mixed reviews from critics
- At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 55
- Based on seven reviews
- Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 4.8 out of 10
- Based on their assessment of the critical consensus
Got anything to add?