Pochette officielle — Republic Records / OVO Sound
Quietly dropped as part of Drake’s deluxe reissue, “Solar Eclipse” has become one of the most talked-about tracks of the fall in just over a week. Carried by Don Toliver’s hazy vocal and built on a sample of Ella Langley’s country smash, the song just handed Don Toliver the highest-charting hit of his career on the Billboard Hot 100, while giving the Drake machine another push on global charts.
Four bonus tracks, one instant hit
“Solar Eclipse” is one of four new songs added on October 2 to the expanded edition of “HABIBTI (FOMO),” Drake’s latest project released through OVO Sound and Republic Records. On its first day alone, the track outpaced the other three new additions with roughly 3.3 million streams, before climbing to the top of Apple Music’s US songs chart, where the album itself also sits at number one.
On October 12, Billboard confirmed the song’s entry at number five on the Hot 100 — the best chart performance of Don Toliver’s career, and yet another top-10 entry for Drake, who keeps extending an already record-setting tally.
A sample pulled from country radio
The track borrows its melody from “Choosin’ Texas,” Ella Langley’s single that tied the all-time record for weeks atop the Hot 100 earlier this year. That choice of sample, unusual for an artist of Drake’s stature, also had an unusual financial twist: several outlets report that Drake forfeited his publishing share on the song, leaving the full songwriting and publishing royalties to Langley and her co-writers. The claim hasn’t been officially confirmed by Drake’s camp, but it’s already feeding a wider conversation about how hip-hop’s biggest names are now borrowing from other scenes — country chief among them.
Don Toliver, a new step up
For Don Toliver, the collaboration lands at a pivotal moment. The Houston artist, who had already kicked off his own era with the “Nitrous” project following the success of “Octane,” gets unprecedented exposure to Drake’s audience here. The pair aren’t strangers to each other: they also share “Cold Shoulder,” another track from the same deluxe edition, this time alongside singer Yebba, whose official video also went up in early October.
Born out of a short film
The song first surfaced inside “FOMO,” a Drake-directed short film that premiered September 15 during a livestream event, before briefly disappearing from YouTube and resurfacing two days later. Several observers noticed that, upon re-upload, the footage featuring Ella Langley appeared to have been cut from the edit — a detail that has only fueled speculation about who truly deserves credit for the track.
A catalog strategy that keeps paying off
The rollout also confirms a deliberate strategy: stretching an album’s shelf life through expanded reissues rather than rushing out new projects. Early industry projections put the relaunch week at roughly 65,000 equivalent album units, a solid number for a deluxe edition arriving months after “HABIBTI” first dropped in May. On the overall Hot 100, though, the track still has to contend with fierce competition: Taylor Swift’s “Patient Zero” holds the top spot for a second straight week, her tenth number one to spend double-digit weeks there — a reminder that even a hit the size of “Solar Eclipse” is operating in a landscape dominated by a handful of outsized juggernauts. Still, landing inside the top five barely a week after release is no small feat, and it puts the song on track to keep climbing as streaming numbers compound over the coming weeks.
Controversy aside, “Solar Eclipse” mostly confirms a broader trend: Drake’s knack for turning almost any release, even one that looked secondary on paper, into an event capable of reshuffling global charts within days — and, in the process, propelling a featured artist to a new stage of his career.
