Considering that no major releases came out on Friday, DrakeвЂ™s Care Package may be battling for Number One - probably with Billie EilishвЂ™s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and Ed SheeranвЂ™s No.6 Collaborations Project - even though the star did not record a single fresh note.Д¬are Package is archetypal Drake so Drake-like that itвЂ™s actually surprising that these songs were not included on the slew of full-lengths the rapper released earlier this decade.

In February, So Far Gone debuted at Number Five and was the third most-streamed album of the week. In fact, the demand for DrakeвЂ™s music is so high that his oldies still outsell almost everything new. His remix of Summer WalkerвЂ™s вЂњGirls Need LoveвЂќ is still played over 2,000 times a week on the radio, while вЂњNice for WhatвЂќ racks up another 500 plays every seven days. He currently makes five appearances on Rolling Stone вЂs Top 100, including three duets in the Top Ten.

While Drake is no longer popвЂ™s creative North Star, he remains a commercial titan, omnipresent as the air we breathe. The rapper once boasted that вЂњevery song sound like Drake featuring DrakeвЂќ ( Care Package track вЂњ5 AM in TorontoвЂќ), but thatвЂ™s not the case today. Calboy, YK Osiris, Lil Baby and others may be indebted to the rap-singing Drake did when they were 12, but they represent a very different aesthetic. The Private Lives of Liza Minnelli (The Rainbow Ends Here)Д«ut thereвЂ™s also a shucking off of creative authority in progress - we no longer live in a universe where Drake can boast вЂњyour new shit sound like you do covers of all of my old shit,вЂќ as he does on Care Package вЂs вЂњJodeci Freestyle.вЂќ Up-and-coming R&B singers once imitated Drake, but now they are reaching past his catalog, searching instead for Nineties hip-hop soul (Jacquees, Ari Lennox) and light sophistifunk (Snoh Aalegra, Daniel Caesar).ДЄt the same time, rising rappers either commandeer the conversation with viral curios (вЂњRansom,вЂќ вЂњUnoвЂќ) or sound like A Boogie wit da Hoodie. While he has released at least one new album or mixtape every year since 2014, 2019 has only brought an unremarkable celebration of the RaptorsвЂ™ victory in the NBA finals. (The same can be said of pop stars - witness Taylor SwiftвЂ™s inability to wrest Number One from the vice-like grip of Lil Nas X.) In DrakeвЂ™s case, the decline is partially due to a temporary lull in his release schedule. There may be a reason for all this hip-hop nostalgia: The supremacy of rappers who were dominant earlier in the 2010s is waning.

At this point, you should expect Future to put Monster and 56 Nights on Spotify any day now. Drake returned Friday with Care Package, a collection of one-offs and loosies he sprinkled onto the internet earlier this decade. Drake put his 2009 mixtape So Far Gone on streaming services for the first time in February Chance the Rapper followed suit, making several of his releases officially monetizable at the end of June. As the 2010s come to a close, rappers are beginning to look backwards.

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