Music
Drake's "One Dance" is the first track to reach 1 billion Spotify plays
by Jeremy Mersereau
December 16, 2016
Admit it, you've listened to it.
Drake’s “One Dance,” aka ‘that one with all the bongos,” has already racked up more accolades than the typical afrobeat-inflected minimal dancehall jam, and now it adds a big one to the pile: it’s been streamed more than one billion times on Spotify.
The song, which samples the 2008 UK funky house track “Do You Mind?”, is currently sitting at 1.002 billion plays. “One Dance” was already the most-streamed song ever soon after its October release, stealing that particular honour from Major Lazer’s “Lean On,” but it wasn’t until this week that it actually broke into the 10-figure range. Drake is by far Spotify’s most-played artist, even though his true loyalties famously lie with another Great House of streaming media.
Despite Drake’s eight Grammy nominations this year, approximately none of them are for “One Dance” specifically, which is somewhat strange for a song that spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Views was just certified quadruple platinum (meaning 4 million units sold, with 1500 streams counting as a ‘unit’) in the U.S.
Let’s hope Wizkid and Kyla are seeing a sizeable chunk of that sweet, sweet Spotify royalty money, or at least enough to buy some ramen this month.
