WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH DRAKE?

Sir Lucian Grainge’s marketshare remains commanding at the halfway mark of the year (37.9% overall and 39% in streams), with a big assist from his marquee artist, Drake, who passed 1 billion U.S. streams shortly after the end of his first week out with Scorpion. Drake’s success, on Monte Lipman’s Republic (the #2 label with 9.5 overall share and 10.3 streaming), is unprecedented in the new-world ecosystem.

Given all this, did anyone honestly believe Sir Lucian would let Drake go anywhere? Much uninformed coverage has zeroed in on the line, “Soon as this album drop I’m out of the deal” in one of his Scorpion songs, with rumors of another forthcoming album prompting the clueless to speculate Drake was going indie. Why would Grainge—one of the savviest and most aggressive music-group CEOs—wait for his star of stars to become a free agent before offering him a new deal? The smart money says that the only deal Drake is out of is his longtime pact with Cash Money, and that he already has a new arrangement in place with Uni. While nothing official has been announced, it’s likely that Drake has been given his own label with fabulous terms and amazing splits. As usual, only Drake knows when he’ll be dropping his next set, but typically contracts like the expiring one with Cash Money contain clauses concerning conflicting release date. Theoretically, a new Drake set could mitigate the success of the current project, but you never know what kinds of deals can be worked out when you’re on fire like the Canuck wonder.