According to Billboard, rap artist Drake has broke out with his his first solo hit “One Dance.’ The cut is one of two singles from his new album Views. The second cut ‘Pop Style’ reached the top spot on the newest edition of the Billboard Hot 100. ‘Views’ skyrocketed to the top with first week sales of over 1 million units. Drake shattered the record for first-week streaming totals even though it was available exclusively on Apple Music.
Drake is an accomplished artist but has never had a number one hit he could call his own. Nine other Drake songs have made it to the top ten and come temptingly close but fell short only reaching the number two spot. These include 2009’s ‘Best I Ever Had’ and 2015’s monster hit ‘Hotline Bling.’ Drakes exclusive deal with Apple iTunes contributed to the album missing out on the top spot . Drake’s only other number one hit was laid on Rihanna’s 2010 “What’s My Name?” and this year’s “Work,” both rose to the top spot.
The most amazing fact of Drake’s recent success is that he sold a million units of ‘View” in less than five days on Apple iTunes and its subscription streaming service.
‘Views’ was released on April 29 and had 191 million plays by the following Tuesday blowing Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ out of the water. The biggest difference between the two releases? The services they each chose to exclusively stream through.
Let’s look at the numbers. Beyonce released “Lemonade’ through her husband Jay-Z’s Tidal music service. Drake through Apple. So its not hard to understand why Drake’s new album became so popular so quickly. He got a helluva of a lot more from Apple Music’s three times larger subscriber base than Jay-Z’s Tidal. Apple simply had more ears to pump Drakes music into. Drake is riding high on Apple iTunes and launching a summer tour.
‘Melo’
Preparing himself for life after basketball Knicks star Carmelo Anthony is setting his sites on the tech industry. Anthony has partnered with Stuart Goldfarb to promote technology entrepreneurship forming Melo7 Tech Partners a venture capital fund.
Anthony and Goldfarb hooked up socially and soon began discussing a business venture. Anthony has had a long time interest in technology and said, “The money is enticing but it’s also the thrill of being involved with businesses and companies changing the world today. Tech is changing the world in everything we do, whether it’s sports, fashion, music…. regardless of what it is tech is changing the world.”
The NBA New York Knicks are using Catapult , a wearble device to collect data and analytics on the team’s performance. “In the NBA everything is data. Everything is data driven,” said Anthony.
But ‘Melo‘ as he is known, maybe looking at some cutting edge technology investments. According to Goldfarb virtual reality and augmented reality devices are technologies that spark investment interest from the fund.
“For me the most interesting thing is fan engagement,” Anthony said. Virtual reality could give fans at home an opportunity to experience a game as if they were courtside,” he said. “And who wouldn’t want that?”
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