A Ranking of All of the Drake Timestamp Records

Release date: March 18th, 2017

Though the outro to More Life isn’t technically part of the Drake timestamp records series, it’s considered somewhat of an unofficial member of the club because of Drake’s “7AM in Germany, can’t believe that they heard of me” line. The song is a classic Drake record in that over a hypnotizing beat, he paints a picture of his life and romanticizes it in a way that the listener is enamoured by the verse, but not without touching on the trials and tribulations of who he is either. If this were an official record, it’d rank high on this list but for now, it’s an honorable mention.

Release date: September 3^rd, 2021

The release of Certified Lover Boy saw another addition to the series with ‘7AM On Bridle Path, which, technically, breaks tradition slightly with its title, but we promise that isn’t why we have it last on the list.

The timestamp songs are generally seen as Drake explaining his point of view from the top of the game in a way that could genuinely feel like a diary entry, but this song feels like it could have been called anything else and no-one would have batted an eyelid. It also focuses on Kanye West a little too much for our liking. The instrumental isn’t nearly interesting enough to hold attention for the length of the track either.

The sentiment of the track is marred slightly because Drake raps “why the f*ck we peace-making, doing the explanations, if we just gon’ be right back in that b*tch without hesitation?” only to patch things up with Ye soon after this dropped, to then go back to dissing him not long after. It aged itself in a negative way.

Release date: February 13^th, 2015

If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late dropped as a surprise on a cold winter morning; the six-year anniversary of So Far Gone, to be exact. It would go on to be considered one of Drake’s best bodies of work, albums, mixtapes and care packages included. In the early hours of the release though, the song that made the headlines was ‘6PM In New York’, for some scathing lines about Tyga where he mocked the Compton rapper’s relationship with then-teenager Kylie Jenner.

In all honesty, there’s little negative to be said about this one. It just fails to deliver the highs of some of the other timestamp records in its runtime.

Release date: June 4^th, 2016

On the twenty-third episode of the Apple Music era of OVO Sound Radio, Drake took a few minutes of airtime to address the game with ‘4PM In Calabasas’, which was the fourth entry in the series at the time of release. Over a groovy instrumental laced by Allen Ritter, Ging and Vinylz, he threw a slew of thinly veiled jabs at Diddy and some wittier, more subtle shots at Joe Budden (“jealous ones still envy”.)

Subliminal shots are what Drake often does best, so they naturally sounds great here over the fun beat, but the real highlight of this song is how cleverly Drake weaves back and forth between his targets while on a victory lap of his life and career the entire time.

Release date: October 5^th, 2023

For All The Dogs’ ‘8AM In Charlotte’ restored the feeling of that “old Drake” that the rapper was promising in the months leading up to the album. The beat from Griselda-affiliated producer Conductor Williams is a dream and Drake pens three verses that make up one of the best, most brash statements of his career.

The best way to describe the level of rapping here is that in between the first and second verse, he says “I feel like if Mike switched out the glove for the pen”, which can be interpreted three ways as Mike Tyson and his boxing glove, Michael Jackson and his white glove or Michael Jordan with a baseball glove. Yeah.

Release date: June 12^th, 2010

It took time for Drake to grow into the global superstar that he is today, but that’s not to say that his stardom was something to turn your nose up at before his first album came out. The pressure was high in the leadup to his debut album and with it leaking about a fortnight out from its official release date, it was a tense period.

Nothing captures that moment in time better than ‘9AM In Dallas’, the freestyle that kicked this series off. A few days out from the release of Thank Me Later, Drake spilled his heart over celebratory, grand production from Boi-1da in one of the best verses of his career. He touched on his loyalty to Lil Wayne, who was about halfway through a prison sentence at the time, being scared about not being what people think he could be and flying first class to meet your favorite singer all in the same four minutes and some change.

Had Drake had it his way, this would have replaced ‘Fireworks’ as the intro for the album, but it missed the deadline and lives on an international version of the album instead. If you weren’t around for when this dropped, it’s a bit of a hidden gem.

Release date: March 7^th, 2013

‘5AM In Toronto’ was Drake in a way that even his biggest fans had never heard him before. The venom that he rapped with on here would take form on Nothing Was The Same and eventually shape the attitude that would approach his entire career with moving forward past that.

This was truly Drake coming out of the shadows, fresh off of a GRAMMY win for Take Care, talking sh*t in a way that we’d never heard before with the “Drake featuring Drake” bar and the Chris Brown disses, to name a few. It was Drake realizing exactly who he was and owning it and to date, it’s the best of the Drake timestamp records in his discography.