Drake Album Release Stunt Creates Havoc, Prompting Police and Fire Department Response

TORONTO — The release date for rapper Drake’s next album has been confirmed, but not before an out-of-control promotional stunt forced police and firefighters to respond to a scene in which crazed fans were taking pickaxes and blowtorches to a 25-foot mountain of ice.The Toronto-based hip-hop musician, the first artist in history to surpass 130 billion total streams on Spotify, hinted to fans in a cryptic, five-second social media video Monday evening that the release date for the album, titled Iceman, was hidden inside an envelope inside a stack of ice in a downtown parking lot.With temperatures reaching only into the mid-50s this week, Drake fans were in no mood to wait for the ice to melt. Video posted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. shows that within hours fans were clambering over the ice sculpture and attacking it with pickaxes, sledge hammers and blowtorches. Some lit a bonfire on top.A spokeswoman for the Toronto Police Service, Laura Brabant, told the CBC that officers were called to the scene just after 11 p.m. Monday.“Large pieces of ice began falling, creating a dangerous situation for people on the ground, as well as those who climbed the structure,” she told the network. She said no one was injured but that officers remained at the scene to manage the crowds.By Tuesday, metal barricades had been set up around the parking lot and security guards were checking ID, barring access to anyone under age 18. Toronto Fire Services crews were working on Wednesday to hose down the ice pile due to “multiple complaints and concerns for public safety.”The fracas was the second public safety incident in a week surrounding the release of the new Drake album, his first since a public altercation with rival rapper Kendrick Lamar in 2024 that featured an exchange of lurid allegations against one another.Residents of a suburban Toronto neighborhood were startled on Thursday evening last week by what one resident described as “this giant fireball, like a mushroom cloud” that lit up the sky. Authorities explained later that the blast was staged for a video promoting the new album and apologized for not giving residents more notice.Meanwhile, on Tuesday afternoon, a Twitch streamer named Kishka succeeded in pulling the hidden envelope from the ice and was invited to take it to Drake’s home. There he was welcomed by the rapper himself and reportedly rewarded with what was described as “stacks of cash.”And the release date? That has been confirmed as May 15.

Drake Album Release Stunt Creates Havoc, Prompting Police and Fire Department Response

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