Drake may have started on the bottom but he’s reached the top.
The Toronto-born hip-hop icon is Spotify’s most-streamed artist of the decade.
According to the popular digital platform’s inaugural edition of Wrapped — its year-end look at the music service’s most-streamed artists and albums — Drake has amassed more than 28 billion streams since his official 2010 debut.
The four-time Grammy Award winner released all five of his solo albums throughout the decade, beginning with 2010’s “Thank Me Later.” “Take Care” followed in 2011, “Nothing Was the Same” in 2013, “Views” in 2016, and his latest solo opus, “Scorpion,” dropped in 2018.
Drake’s eight-times platinum, dance-hall track “One Dance,” featuring Wizkid and Kyla (from “Views”), is Spotify’s second-most-streamed track of the decade, behind British singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran’s ubiquitous “Shape of You,” which accounted for 2.3 billion streams on Spotify.
Also worth noting: “Take Care” — which spurred the hits “The Motto” (with Lil’ Wayne), “Make Me Proud” (with Nicki Minaj) and the title track (with Rihanna) was certified six-times platinum, and stands as Billboard’s number-one R&B/Hip Hop album of the decade.
Released Tuesday, “Wrapped” also named Lizzo, Lunay and Lil Nas X as the top breakout acts of 2019.
Adding podcasts to the platform in 2015 has been a big boon for the publicly-traded Swedish business founded in 2006; listenership grew by 50% this year.
Among the 500,000 titles now available on the platform, “The Joe Budden Podcast with Rory and Mal” has been the most streamed podcast of 2019.
Spotify said its 113 million subscribers will also be able to view their personalized streaming statistics in the near future.
