If you had to name one defining artist of the streaming era, a strong argument could be made for Drake. He was Spotify’s most-streamed artist of the 2010s. On top of that, he was the platform’s most-played artist in 2015, 2016, and 2018, and his three years on top of the year-end tally are more than any other artist has had.
Now, it looks like he has hit another amazing streaming milestone that further sets him apart from the rest: Chart Data reports that Drake is the first artist to reach 50 billion streams across all his credited songs on Spotify.
.@Drake has now surpassed 50 billion streams on Spotify across all credits. He is the first artist in history to hit this milestone.
— chart data (@chartdata) January 17, 2021
That claim is supported by ChartMasters, whose data indicates that as of January 16, 2021, songs on which Drake is credited as a lead artist have accrued 35,704,203,269 streams. Meanwhile, songs on which Drake is listed as a featured artist have 14,297,795,559 total streams. That adds up to 50,001,998,828 (50 billion with about an extra 2 million added for good measure).
ChartMasters also notes that of Drake’s 222 songs on Spotify, 209 (nearly all of them) have eclipsed 10 million streams, 91 of them have topped 100 million streams, and three are at over a billion streams. Additionally, Drake’s “One Dance” is at about 1.964 billion Spotify streams as of January 18, so if it hits 2 billion streams (which seems likely), it will be his first song to hit 2 billion and only the fourth ever. It’s currently behind Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” (2.692 billion), Post Malone and 21 Savage’s “Rockstar” (2.098 billion), and Tones And I’s “Dance Monkey” (2.044 billion).
Drake had a huge 2020 on Spotify as well. Bad Bunny was the platform’s most-played artist of the year, but Drake came in at second.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.