Hip-hop has a new wunderkind, and he – like many before him – has a mononym. With his recent string of releases and successes, it seems that music biz newcomer Drake can do no wrong. Here’s a roundup of all the things he’s been doing right lately.

Sticking to His Release Date Guns

The Toronto-based actor turned rapper had the release date for his studio debut album Thank Me Later set for June 15 as early as April this year (it was completed in November last year). Record label execs, however, wanted him to change the date when copies of the album were leaked on the Internet.

Drake, however, stuck to Plan A. “Let’s give them those two weeks to ride around to it and talk to their friends about it,” he said in an interview. The tactic didn’t hurt sales, and people were still making beelines to Best Buys and Wal-Marts when the record dropped.

Thank Me Later Drops Now

Against all the doom and gloom predicted by the label, Thank Me Later was released to the market very well. Like most artists, he showed up at a retail outlet – in this case, a Manhattan Best Buy branch – to meet and greet album buyers.

Fans had been camped out at said store since 2 PM on June 14 – the previous day – just to get a signed copy of the album. More than 600 people were reportedly there to get their copies of Thank Me Later signed by the up-and-comer.

A scheduled free performance for the release of the album was scheduled for later that day, but the NYPD had shut it down before Drake had even taken the stage. Fans and audience members had reportedly become so rowdy that the cops were afraid the area would get “hostile and unsafe.” This didn’t stop fans from reappearing at Manhattan nightlife hotspot Amnesia for a release party sponsored by radio station Hot 97. Seo India