Since his emergence in 2009 alongside his Young Money counterparts Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Tyga, and others, Drake has hit the charts an unfathomable number of times and has earned himself an abundance of awards as a result.
Hit songs are hard to come by, and many artists make music for years until they come across one. Although exceptionally talented producers such as Hit-Boy, The Alchemist, and Metro Boomin’ make an unbelievably large number of instrumentals, it takes a particular artist to bring a beat to life and make a hit in the process.
In 2018, Drake released a hit single with ‘Nonstop,’ a track featured on the Canadian’s epic body of work, Scorpion. The song sees Drake (real name Aubrey Graham) speak on his work in hip-hop and his success in building an empire.
In the lyrics, Graham shouts out his DJ, Future the Prince, who overlooks Drake’s business ventures, as well as OVO founder Oliver El-Khatib, who helped him build the record label from the ground up.
During the second verse, Drake speaks about his smart business moves, rapping, “Future took the business and ran it for me / I let Ollie take the owl, told him brand it for me / I get 2 million a pop, and that’s standard for me / Like I went blind, dog, you gotta hand it to me.”
The song has a distinct Memphis sound and samples the 1995 track ‘My Head Is Spinnin’ by Mack Daddy Ju. However, to achieve this sound, Drake had to go to a producer who was native to the city, and that was Tay Keith.
Concerning ‘Nonstop,’ Drake spent his summers with his father in South East Memphis and knew what he was looking for. However, Tay Keith, who is behind hits such as ‘Sicko Mode’ and BlocBoy JB’s ‘Look Alive,’ was not expecting the regional beat to be a hit.
In an interview with Billboard magazine about the track, Keith revealed, “It was one of those records, I didn’t expect it to be as big as it was. It was one of those, ‘Oh, I’m just gonna cook this up in a pack and see where it goes.’ Drake hopped on it and was f*cking with it. I didn’t expect it to be at number two on the Billboard Hot 100!”
He continued, “For it to be just a beat I cooked in a pack, too? It wasn’t made for anything specific. It was a random type of blessing.” ‘Nonstop’ was the most streamed song from Scorpion reaching 9.2 million streams within 24hrs.
You can hear ‘Nonstop’ below.
