Drake shouts out Taylor Swift on surprise release

Well, it looks like Drake’s tummy isn’t hurting so much anymore. Just weeks after announcing he’d be taking an extended break from music to deal with some health complications—specifically the fact that he’d been having “the craziest problems for years with [his] stomach”—the “IDGAF” rapper and published poet is back with a surprise new album. The six-song record, titled Scary Hours 3, is a followup to 2018's Scary Hours and 2021's Scary Hours 2.

Drake announced the album yesterday in a dramatic video posted to Instagram, in which he sits for a private performance by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as a white-gloved attendant holds an invitation for himself and producers Noel Cadastre and NBA star Kevin Durant, who is also credited on the rapper’s latest release, For All The Dogs.

“I feel no need to appease anybody. I feel so confident about the body of work that I just dropped,” Drake says in the video’s voiceover, potentially as a special little note to his gastroenterologist. “I know I could go disappear for, whatever, six months, a year, two years—even though I’m not really into the super lengthy disappearances for the sake of mystery,” he continued. “Ultimately, it’s coming to me in a way that I haven’t experienced maybe since, like, If You’re Reading This [It’s Too Late], where I feel like I’m on drugs. I feel like I’m in that mental state without doing anything.”

In the video, the ever-prolific rapper also revealed that he penned all six tracks in the past five days. “I didn’t have one bar written down for those songs on the night that For All the Dogs dropped,” he said “It’s not like I’m picking up from some unfinished shit. You know, this is just happening on its own. And who am I to fight it”

On the record, Drake leans into the zeitgeist as much as ever. And, as we all know by now, the current zeitgeist is mostly Taylor Swift. If announcing a surprise album you’re especially proud of on social media hours before a midnight drop sounds familiar to Swifties, this isn’t Drake’s only nod to the ever-present star. Drake also shouts out Taylor by name in a bar from the song “Red Button,” in which he sings, “Taylor Swift the only n—- I ever rated/Only one could make me drop the album just a little later/Rest of y’all I treat you like you never made it/Leave your label devastated even when you pad the stats period I never hated.” While everyone else on the charts can cower to this new release, it seems like the only person Drake may really need to watch out for is Taylor’s boyfriend Travis Kelce, who just entered the scene with a #1 single of his own. Maybe Travis’ musical ascendance is the real scary hour being referenced here.