DJ Akademiks Argues Drake’s Old Music Is Carrying His Success

Drake can go on hiatus for three years only to still sell out a tour on the other side of the world, and it looks like his streaming numbers also reflect that. Moreover, DJ Akademiks recently made the claim that the Toronto superstar’s dominance in the music industry today mostly owes its success to the classic material he released six-plus years ago. “Also, he leveraged the fact that they’re eating so much off of his back catalog,” Ak expressed on stream. “That dropping frequently helps the back catalog. And, by the way, 80 to 85 percent of Drake’s current streams is from albums that dropped over six years ago. And I’m being very fair here. I love Drake, that’s my favorite artist. Bro, the labels look at him different.”

What’s most curious about DJ Akademiks’ assessment of Drake’s numbers is not only that he’s probably correct, but that this is likely true of most massive artists at his level of reach, popularity, acclaim, and most importantly, legacy. Kendrick Lamar can probably say the same thing. good kid, m.A.A.d. city is still on the Billboard 200. But we know that K.Dot sales are a dicey topic for Drizzy these days…

Of course, we’re talking about Drake’s legal petition against Universal Music Group and Spotify for allegedly inflating the commercial success of “Not Like Us.” There are a whole lot of angles to consider when it comes to this story, especially when stacked up against the almost simultaneous release of Kendrick Lamar’s new album GNX. We definitely haven’t heard the end of it, and we wouldn’t express shock if this extended the 2024 rap beef into all of 2025. Still, they’re not really connected beyond “Not Like Us” being at the center, as the legal petition fries bigger fish.

Regardless, it still recontextualizes both Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s commercial accomplishments. In this case, this doesn’t really have anything to do with the legal petition. Yet DJ Akademiks does bring up a reality that could one day inform the OVO mogul’s future at Universal Music Group – if they stay buddy-buddy afterwards, that is.