This past Friday (August 25), Drake fans around the world expected him to release his long-awaited eighth solo album For All The Dogs, which was initially announced in late June. However, when the clock struck midnight ET and every other mainstream release of the week was uploaded to digital streaming platforms, nothing was added to Drake’s catalog. “What gives?” fans questioned.
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It wouldn’t take long for them to get their answer, though. Later that night, during Drake’s first show of a back-to-back in Seattle, he addressed the crowd with an update on the album, and why it didn’t arrive that day.
“I know everybody’s upset that I didn’t drop an album last night,” he told the Seattle attendees. “I didn’t say it was dropping last night. So don’t be mad at me. I just said it was coming soon.”
Now you must be asking yourself, “If Drake didn’t confirm Friday as the release date, why did fans think the project was dropping Friday?” Well, that’s because earlier in the week, the official Twitter (X) account for Amazon Music proclaimed that For All The Dogs was set to arrive on Friday. They would soon delete this tweet, though.
While Amazon Music’s mix-up wasn’t entirely convincing, a report from Billboard on Thursday (August 24) made fans feel like there was no way Friday wasn’t the day. Writing that the LP was “set for release tomorrow (Aug. 25),” Billboard gave the Drake community all the confidence they needed to start prepping for the album’s arrival. Again, though, Billboard would retract this soon after, editing this sentence out of their article.
But, even with all this uncertainty, hip-hop heads still held out hope as 12 a.m. approached. Which is why there was eventually disappointment.
“y’all stupid, no body even said for all the dogs was comin out tonight,” Lil Yachty, a close friend of Drake, tweeted 11 minutes after midnight.
[RELATED: Drake Reveals ‘For All The Dogs’ Cover Art Drawn by Son]
A blunder like this, especially weeks removed from almost the exact same situation occurring with Travis Scott’s UTOPIA, should be a lesson to fans of high-profile rappers: Only believe it if they tell you themselves. Either way, though, Drake still plans on delivering For All The Dogs in the very near future. Continuing in his speech to the Seattle concertgoers, the Toronto icon guaranteed that all of this anticipation would be worth it.
“It’s not going to be that much longer, trust me. I’m finishing it up,” he added. “You know I got shows everybody. But I promise you, For All The Dogs is on the way… I promise you, this album will be for you. I promise you it will be worth the wait.”
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