Drake postpones the release of upcoming album, Certified Lover Boy
‘My energy has been dedicated to recovery,’ the rapper, who recently underwent surgery, wrote to fans
For months, Drake has been teasing his sixth studio album, Certified Lover Boy, which was scheduled to come out this month. But this week, the Toronto rapper announced that the album will now be postponed till later this year.
"Between surgery and rehab, my energy has been dedicated to recovery," Drake wrote in an Instagram story post. "I'm blessed to be back on my feet feeling great and focused on the album, but CLB won't be dropping in January." There is no new release date yet, but Drake promises the album will be out in 2021.
Although Drake didn't share details of his injury or subsequent surgery, he did share a photo back in October of his knee in a brace.
Drake first revealed that he was working on his followup to 2018's Scorpion in June 2019 when he posted that he was in "album mode" on Instagram. Last August, he released the lead single for the album, "Laugh Now Cry Later" featuring Chicago rapper Lil Durk, which is up for two Grammy Awards this year. Last year he also released Dark Lane Demo Tapes, a compilation of songs that had been previously released on Soundcloud or leaked. It featured a new single called "Toosie Slide," which spawned a viral dance challenge on TikTok.
This week, Drake once again made history as the first artist to ever surpass 50 billion streams on Spotify. He was also previously named the most-streamed artist of the 2010s by Spotify, amassing over 28 billion streams, beating out other artists like Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande and Post Malone.
These are just the latest in a continually growing list of accomplishments by Drake who, in recent years, has broken many Billboard records, including some decades-long records held by the Beatles such as most Billboard Hot 100 top 10 songs in a single year. In 2019, Drake even commemorated these records by getting an Abbey Road-inspired tattoo that included the four members of the group plus the rapper himself standing next to them. In 2020, he broke Madonna's record for most top 10 singles in the history of the US Billboard chart with 40 hits, thanks to a pair of singles that year with DJ Khaled, "Popstar" and "Greece."