Drake's Top 10 Best-Selling Albums, Ranked (2023)

Aside from a few flights of fancy from artists like Maestro Fresh Wes and Dream Warriors, Canada hasn't historically been particularly successful in producing rap stars big enough to make it onto the US radar.better known today as Drake– exploded onto the scene with his 2010thanks me laterDebut that quickly reached platinum status.

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Much of this was due to a series of mixtapes he released on Lil Wayne's label, as well as aRolle in der TV-Show Degrassi: The Next Generationa few years earlier. Since then, Drake has never looked back, churning out chart-topping releases and making him one of the best-selling recording artists of the last decade. Here's a look at production success based on recent certifications and physical and streaming sales, tabulated bycard master.

10Dark Lane demo tapes (2020) ~ 250,000 copies

Not many artists can get away with selling thousands of copies of works originally found on SoundCloud, usually a creative haven for unsigned and indie acts trying to garner attention.

But then again, not everyone is Drake, who put out this collection of very early work as a harbinger of his next full-length album with a subverted release date. These sales figures will be released in early 2020 and are expected to increase significantly.

9What A Time To Be Alive (2015) ~ 2,3 Millionen Exemplare

Recorded with American rapper Future while Drake was spending a few days in Atlanta, this outing followed up on an earlier hit by the duo called "Where Ya At." It's safe to say that their minds were in the right place to put this collection together.

Despite the finesse of the title, much of this content deals with various struggles that plague both rappers. For Future, it was drug addiction. For Drake, it was uncertainty. There's nothing like a tortured artist element to bring out all that creativity.

8So Far Gone (2009) ~ 2.4 million copies

Of all the mixtapes to come out on Lil Wayne's label, this was one of the best received, and much of that sweat ended up on his debut album. Some of the works were written between Drake and fellow Toronto artist Noah Shebib, who later went on to produce all of the artist's albums.

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Some of the content deals with the usual glitzy banter, but Drake balances that nicely with some general perspectives that go well beyond materialism. It's a combination that would appear regularly in their lyrics on later releases.

7Nothing Was the Same (2013) ~ 2.6 million copies

One thing about Drake's releases is that they're not particularly smooth or packed with mind-blowing walls of sound. He's the type of artist who wants to make every instrument breathe to give his spoken word the right vibe.

Such play is particularly evident on this recording, which also emphasizes distortions such as swinging bass and sped up backing vocals that somewhat underscore the album title's uneasiness. Many of these tricks are used to great effect on tracks like "Tuscan Leather" and "Started at the Bottom."

6More Life (2017) ~ 3.3 million copies

It's not often that a mixtape tops the Billboard charts, but given the mileage Drake has garnered in terms of sales, it's no surprise that he's among a select few to pull off the feat. In addition to standard hop-hop, Drake interweaves various currents from subgenres such as afro-beat and dancehall in his work.

And despite the variety of areas he draws in, his attention to song sequencing keeps his material flowing steadily from start to finish.

5If You're Reading This It's Too Late (2015) ~ 4 million copies

Returning to the same creative mine he was digging fornothing was like before, Drake's 17-song collection sounds like the sum total of troubles between his mentor Lil Wayne and record label Cash Money. There's a great deal of cynicism that runs throughout the release, symptoms of the potholes breaking up the pavement on the road to success.

If you are reading this, it will be too late.it sounds dark and mostly not danceable. But it works with its multi-genre sampling, this time with a bigger focus on R&B beats.

4Scorpion (2018) ~ 4.1 million copies

By far the most ambitious Drake adventure yet,ScorpioIt was released as a double vinyl album, with one disc dedicated to pure hip-hop and the other focusing on classic rhythm and blues. Certified platinum a day before it dropped,Scorpioproduced several number one singles including "God's Plan" and "Nice For What".

Critically it was treated as a patchy work, with several nods of appreciation to its rap side, which was pointed as ever. The R&B material, on the other hand, had a few moments, but much of the material was too slow to take seriously.

3Thank Me Later (2010) ~ 4.4 million copies

2010 introduced Drake to the world with this debut, crammed full of pounding synths, symphonic samples and old-school beatbox working overtime. Oh, and it had appearances from Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne. There's no pressure there.

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But it captured the masses, even without police blotters to gain street cred, as singles like "Over" and "Miss Me" topped the top 20 on the sales chart. Perhaps refreshing was his dose of self-loathing, a surprising counterpoint to the bravery that characterized most of his peers.

2Take Care (2011) ~ 8.1 million copies

Watch aftermore than picking up where Drake's debut left off. It also gave Drake and Shebib more time to explore heavier musical possibilities, Drake foundthanks me laterI was in too much of a hurry in the studio. For many, the wait was worth it.

Critics loved how Drake's quirks attempted to live up to his status as a high-profile rapper, topped with equally outlandish samples that would have been out of place in any other rapper's work. And having Nicki Minaj and Rihanna on board didn't hurt either. Their respective contributions to the songs "Make Me Proud" and "Take Care" marked the first time Drake cracked the top 10.

1Views (2016) ~ 9.2 million copies

On the surface, Drake's best-selling album seems like a love letter to Toronto. The cover shows him atop the city's CN Tower, long the world's tallest freestanding structure, a likely metaphor for Drake's position on the music scene. Toronto photographer and photographer Caitlin Cronenberg, daughter of film director David Cronenberg, opened the shutters for this iconic shot.

Much of the material featured snippets of West Indian and African music, reflecting the communities that thrive in the city. But despite that eclecticism and the success of singles like "Hotline Bling" and "One Dance," critics complained that Drake's introspection was frayed with lyrics that lacked the sharpness of earlier efforts.

Still, that negative praise wasn't strong enough to drown out the "Ka-ching!" Choruses that resonate with Drake's most successful album to date.

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