Drake’s fifth album Scorpion has received more than 1 billion streams globally in its first week. The news has been confirmed by Drake's label, Republic Records.
The album also broke the U.S. streaming records with 745.92 million streams in its first week, topping single day-records on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music, with 300 million streams in its first 24 hours. According to Billboard, Drake owns four of the top 10 streaming weeks for an album.
What's more, the Scorpion single "God's Plan" has also become the most-streamed song of 2018, earning 1.121 billion streams. This achievement made it the only song to top a billion streams in 2018.
Drake's achievement surpasses previous record that was held by Post Malone with his beerbongs & bentleys album, which achieved 700 million streams in its first week.
The Canadian singer celebrated this by posting to Instagram: "New era. New platinum," he said in a caption. "Thank you a billion times over (a billion plus)."
Besides a singer, Aubrey Drake Graham is also known as a songwriter and an entrepreneur.
He initially gained popularity when he was an actor on the teen drama television series Degrassi: The Next Generation in the early 2000s. He parted with the series to pursuit his rapper career in 2007, following the release of his debut: Room for Improvement.
Drake holds several Billboard chart records. As of 2018, he has the most charted songs among solo artists in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.
The release of Scorpion coincides with Billboard’s new calculation formula that gives more power to paid subscription streams.
