One Dance
by Drake (featuring Wizkid & Kyla)

Album: Views (2016)
Charted: 1 1
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Songfacts®:

  • This dancehall-themed burner was one of two Drake singles released on April 5, 2016, alongside "Pop Style." Drake raps here about having one more dance with a woman before he leaves the club with "a Hennessy in my hand." The Toronto MC previously referenced the French cognac on his Take Care track "HYFR."
  • The song features Nigerian singer Wizkid, who is part of a wave of artists from his country who have captured the attention of music listeners outside Africa. In February 2014, Wizkid became the first ever musician from Nigeria to have over 1 million followers on Twitter. He has worked with Drake before - in 2015 the Toronto MC jumped on a remix of "Ojuelegba," which was originally a hit song off WizKid's sophomore album Ayo(Joy).
  • UK singer Kyla is also listed as a featured artist. The track samples her 2008 UK club jam, ""Do You Mind," which she recorded with the production duo Crazy Cousinz. It reached #140 on the singles chart.
  • Here's what Kyla told The Quietus about her original version of "Do You Mind": "The lyrics was me and Paleface. When we got into the studio we were just vibeing, we'd already done one track called 'Think About You' and we were just joking about going 'Do you mind?' and it turned into a song."
  • Drake has nodded to the UK underground before. Back in 2011, he was referencing Sneakbo on the Take Care track "Cameras." (His "How you mean" lyric was originally the title of a song by the UK MC.). A few years later, the Toronto MC befriended Skepta and thanked the grime artist in the credits for his mixtape If You're Reading This It's Too Late.
  • At first Kyla thought the proposed collaboration was an April Fool. Speaking to Trevor Nelson on BBC Radio 1Xtra, she recalled: "I got a call a while back, and I was getting loads of emails. To be honest, I was really bad and kept putting them aside like 'I'll call later'. You know how it is, sometimes we've had things come in and they fall through at the last minute."

    Kyla continued: "When we phoned, the company said 'A huge international star wants to sample your tune and they wanna have a meeting with you'. I was like 'Yeah ok, who?' and when they said Drake I was like 'Yeah right!' We signed papers and I still didn't believe it. I had a feeling someone was gonna say to me 'April Fools.'"
  • This was Drake's first #1 single in the UK as a lead artist. Previously, the Canadian reached the summit with his Rihanna collaboration "What's My Name?."

    It was also Drake's first solo chart-topper on the Hot 100. Both "Best I Ever Had" in 2009 and "Hotline Bling" had previously fallen just short, stalling at #2.

    Drake had made appearances on the top of the chart before with featured appearances on two Rihanna tracks - "What's My Name?" in 2010 and "Work" in 2016.
  • Drake performed the track live for the first time on April 14, 2016 when he made a cameo appearance during Rihanna's Toronto gig.
  • Drake performed both this song and his braggadocios track "Hype" when he hosted the May 14, 2016 episode of Saturday Night Live. The Toronto rapper also appeared in a number of comedy sketches during the show.
  • Justin Bieber jumped on a remix taking lead vocals for the first verse, while Drake comes in after the second chorus. It was the first time the two Canadians have worked together since 2012, when Drake was featured on Bieber's Believe single "Right Here."
  • This spent 15 consecutive weeks at #1 on the UK singles chart equaling the 15 week of Wet Wet Wet's "Love Is All Around" in 1994. Only one song has had a longer unbroken spell at the summit: "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" by Drake's fellow Canadian Bryan Adams spent 16 weeks at the peak position.
  • In October 2016, "One Dance" surpassed the total play count of Major Lazer's "Lean On" to become the most-streamed song of all time on Spotify. Two months later, it became the first song in history to rack up one billion streams on the streaming service.

    Ed Sheeran's "Shape Of You" streams surpassed those of "One Dance" in September 2017 to become Spotify's most-streamed song ever.
  • This was the best-selling single of 2016 in the UK, racking up 1.95 million combined sales, comprising 530,000 downloads and 142 million streams.
  • Co-producer Nineteen85 recalled the story of the beat to Billboard magazine:

    "We were in London a couple of years ago for Wireless Festival, and we kept playing 'Do You Mind?' by Kyla, which I sampled on 'One Dance.' I wanted to figure out how to create that I-don't-care-who's-looking vibe, the vibe of those parties.

    'One Dance' makes you feel not embarrassed to dance, no matter who you're in front of. There's a void when it comes to that type of feel-good record nowadays the songs that the Michael Jacksons of the world used to make. Drake always knows how to make people feel."
  • Recognize that distinct boom-ch-boom-chik beat? It's called the dembow rhythm and was used a year before Drake's tune in Justin Bieber's hit "Sorry." With roots in reggaeton, the syncopated groove, accompanied by a 4/4 kick drum, was a staple of dancehall hits of the '90s before Latin artists like Daddy Yankee ("Gasolina") brought it into the mainstream in the following decade.

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