It has been announced that Drake is now the best-selling certified singles artist in the history of the Recording Industry of America. The Canadian rapper has now taken over from fellow hip-hop star and commercial heavyweight Eminem. The news was announced yesterday, and Drake received ten new plaques from the RIAA, which took his total singles sold to 184 million.
Eminem was previously noted with the prized spot back in March after announcing he had sold 166 million copies of his singles. Among Drake’s catalogue are two diamond certifications for ‘Hotline Bling’ and ‘One Dance’, which will have sold at least 10 million copies in the US.
In light of that, Drake is now just the third artist to have at least five diamond singles under his belt as ‘God’s Plan’, ‘SICKO MODE’ (featuring Travis Scott) and ‘Life Is Good’ (with Future) have also achieved the feat. This puts Drake amongst the company of Post Malone and Bruno Mars, who have five and six diamond singles, respectively.
Drake likely has his eye on the next prize, the record for the highest certified RIAA track. That mantle is currently jointly held by Swae Lee and Post Malone’s ‘Sunflower’ and ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X. Both tracks have been certified 17x platinum.
Perhaps ‘God’s Plan’ is most likely to overtake the two tracks mentioned above. The 2018 Scorpion single was granted 15x platinum status on Thursday and, as such, is Drake’s biggest hit.
Drizzy will be hoping that his recent collaborative album with 21 Savage will put him in good standing to continue to receive awards of this kind. The two rappers had been part of several fake promotional campaigns, including a phoney Vogue cover shoot and a pretend interview with Howard Stern.