After being delayed a week, Drake & 21 Savage’s new album Her Loss released today (Nov 4), and if you missed Champagne Papi’s entertaining Instagram posts leading up to the release – the three ways I’d describe it would be fake Vogue, porn preferences, and Tiny Desk Concerts.Â
In the hip-hop world, during the build up to what is usually an album release, the artist(s) will often gradually release a series of interviews, freestyles, magazine covers, photoshoots and maybe a Tiny Desk session – often called a rollout.
There are plenty of artists who choose not to participate in the rollouts, and considering Drake now has over 50 billion Spotify streams, you can imagine he probably doesn’t actually need to be doing these promos. Although, in true Drake fashion, he likes to do thinks a bit differently.Â
The Toronto-born icon never fails at creating speculation and general talk during the build up to one of his releases. He’s even fearless in the face of memeing, we’ve seem time and time again that no one quite enjoys posting Drake memes as much as Drake himself.Â
With the arrival of their new project Her Loss by Drake & 21 Savage, we take a look at the viral marketing campaign that almost mocks the traditional way of hip-hop artists promoting their upcoming work.
First up, the duo shared a fake Vogue cover of the pair pictured on the cover and they thank Anna Wintour in the caption for her “love and support on this historic moment.”
At first glance, the fake Vogue cover is very convincing and I imagine it probably did fool a selection of people. Drake’s never been on the cover of Vogue, but with his ever-growing fame status, is it a matter of when?
Ever wondered what porn Drake likes to watch? I’m not sure why you’d want to know, but apparently it was on Howard Stern’s mind.
In another clip shared on Instagram, we can see the rap dup on The Howard Stern Show, where the talk show host starts asking Drake about his porn preferences. A little weird? Luckily, this too was also fake.
Howard Stern didn’t really sit down with Drake & 21 Savage to talk porn preferences. In fact, in a true spoof moment, the pair dressed up and tried to reimagine clips from Howard Stern’s April interview with Jerrod Carmichael.Â
In the third and final moment for the rap duo’s fake promo tour, they teased the introduction to their own Tiny Desk Concert.
Hosted by NPR Music (who are now keen to make this happen), Tiny Desk Concert are small and intimate live performances from artists. They usually last around 20 minutes and some previous top performances have come from Mac Miller, Usher, Dave and Jorja Smith.
Considering the purpose of a rollout is to create talk surrounding the artist and their new work, I’d say it’s safe to say Drake and 21 Savage’s fake promo campaign has worked well.Â
Although on the other hand, I’m still wondering what’s up with the album artwork? I also wasn’t convinced with the Certified Lover Boy (2021) artwork either, but if the music’s just as good, what’s the harm in an unconventional, slightly confusing album cover?
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