On Friday, Drake and 21 Savage released Her Loss, a highly anticipated collaboration to say the least. Multiple lyrics found in the project have sent shockwaves throughout the industry, with multiple rappers responding to multiple perceived slights.
But call-outs aren't the only way Drake and 21 have been getting publicity for their album. The two have made a collection of spoofs to promote different songs– a fake Vogue cover, a fake Howard Stern interview, and a fake NPR Tiny Desk Concert. Now, the 6 god and Savage have dropped a fake Saturday Night Live appearance.
In the video, Drizzy and 21 are introduced in typical SNL fashion by none other than actor Michael B. Jordan. "Ladies and gentlemen, presenting your musical guests for the evening, Drake and 21 Savage," Jordan says in the opening of the video.
The two rappers then take the stage and perform "On BS," and a crowd applause is piped in. The rest of the video looks exactly like, well, an SNL performance.
Drake committed to the bit on Instagram. "@nbcsnl musical guest once again with my brother @21savage thank you for the love HER LOSS OUT NOW @michaelbjordan," he wrote in his caption.
It seems the publicity stunts are working. Her Loss is on track to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard chart. Its main competition is Taylor Swift's most recent record-breaking smash hit Midnights. Swift moved a mind-boggling 1.578M units in just the US. Her Loss won't do those numbers (few albums could), but its numbers will still be big, at around 335-330K.
On just its first day out, the Drake-21 Savage collab got an astronomical 150 million streams, and all signs point to 425 - 450 million streams by the end of the week. It seems that even with its controversial lyrics, or perhaps because of them, everyone wants a piece of Her Loss.
One of the handful of artists to respond to Drake's disses was Kanye West, who has made clear that no slight is too small to get a rise out of him. "Enough already," Ye wrote. "I done gave this man his flowers multiple times Let’s really see who are real ops are in this music game Imagine all the rappers on the same side and everyone cleaning up each others contracts It’s kingdom time Love Drake #lovespeech."
[via]