Collectively, Drake, Don Toliver, and Ella Langley are a covetous energy throuple. Between Langley’s chart-conquering nation ballad “Choosin’ Texas,” Toliver’s world-conquering album Octane, and Drake’s triple-album buffet ICEMAN (which defied the legal guidelines of public disgrace to rebirth Drizzy because the goofy hitmaker we first swooned over), 2026 was their regnal yr. The sharpest transfer on Drake’s comeback ascent may simply be becoming a member of their star energy on “Photo voltaic Eclipse,” a slurry, blacked-out remix of “Choosin’ Texas.” Much more shrewd, he launched the tune as an addendum to the least outstanding ICEMAN album, HABIBTI, a lukewarm suite of sulky R&B that largely sounds just like the plagiarizing little brother of 2011’s Take Care.
Forfeiting the twang of the supply materials, “Photo voltaic Eclipse” staggers throughout the pale interiors of psychotoxic trap-soul. The unique blonde temptress of the Stagecoach Ballroom in Fort Value melts into the backdrop of Houston’s after-hours lounges, the place there’s sweat on the strip pole at 5 a.m. and scattered Pérignon bottles deserted for the following midnight delight. Drake depends on the refined emotion of his singing voice to move us to those temper palaces. He sings, “A cowgirl finally ends up using off on me” within the opening refrain, flipping “A cowboy all the time finds a strategy to go away” right into a intercourse scene, whereas Langley’s line “I can inform by the way in which he’s two-steppin’ ’around the room” turns into, effectively, one other dick reference. Drake ditches the tear-salted Jack and as a substitute sloshes via sufficient “yak” (cognac) to expedite his feral impulses.
In his verse, a smooth-talking Don Toliver leaps on the alternative to shout out his residence county of Fort Bend, Texas. Whereas Toliver shares Drake’s loverboy swagger, his rizz is sort of strictly reserved for escapades occurring on the way in which to, from, and on the membership, with the bass boosted and a cup of lean at his facet. When his crackled Auto-Tune rap-singing hits “Photo voltaic Eclipse,” it’s a rock-star entrance layered on high of electrical guitar stabs. As he surveys the aftermath of his final sexual conquest, he nods to some acquainted comforts: “Pre-rolls in my home, it’s weapons in my sofa/Don’t contact until you wanna discover out.” It’s a traditional Don Toliver mix: hinting on the potential for tenderness, then instantly chopping it with the eternal promise of hazard. The system has enraptured heartachey ladies nonetheless sporting a devilish twinkle of their eyes at golf equipment the world over, and now it makes for a heavensent counterweight to Drake’s well-worn sensitivity. This New Yorker has no tethers to Texas, Tennessee, or Toronto, however the subsequent time I’m in a automobile gliding down a darkish freeway, this post-summer anthem will get the primary play.
