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Drake wants to “freeze the world” with his new album, and he started by icing over the CN Tower.
As he teased on Instagram earlier Thursday, the CN Tower was covered in icy blue projections at 9:45 p.m., in honour of his new album, Iceman.
While the tower was lit up, Drake was livestreaming the visual album on Youtube, splicing aerial shots of downtown Toronto with music videos for unreleased Iceman tracks.
At the end of the livestream, a 10-minute fireworks finale along Toronto’s waterfront lit up the city’s skyline.
WATCH | Drake’s final Iceman livestream:
At different points during the stream, Drake could be seen inside the CN Tower, walking through city hall and driving through the streets of Toronto at night.
In an opening voiceover, Drake revealed that his father, Dennis Graham, was diagnosed with cancer and shared musings about fans turning away from him during his beef with Kendrick Lamar.
Drake told Complex Magazine last November that he decided to go against a conventional album rollout, opting for theatrical livestreams instead because he had been “dying to act” and “dying for a challenge.”
Thursday night’s spectacle followed the huge ice sculpture Drake erected in a parking lot in downtown Toronto in April to reveal the album’s release date that he had teased was hidden somewhere inside.
After fans flocked to the sculpture in droves, some with pickaxes and blowtorches, the city declared it a safety hazard and blocked it off, but not before the release date was revealed as May 15.
The lead up to Iceman began in 2025, with three livestream episodes uploaded to Youtube. The fourth took over Toronto’s waterfront Thursday night, with fireworks at the Harbourfront Centre, as well as the CN Tower projections.
Iceman Episode 1 went live on July 4, 2025, and was a 58-minute teaser for the single, What Did I Miss and other unreleased songs. In it, Drake was seen in a warehouse full of guns and driving around Toronto in a van with the word “Iceman” on the side.
WATCH | The video for What Did I Miss:
Iceman Episode 2 was livestreamed a few weeks later on July 24 in Manchester, England, and included British rapper Central Cee, who was featured on Drake’s following single Which One. The third livestream aired on Nov. 18 and was recorded in Milan.
In 2024, Drake and Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar were embroiled in a highly publicized rap beef. Drake hasn’t had a single hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 since.
He is currently tied with Michael Jackson for the most No. 1 hits by a solo act. Subsequent releases following the beef with Lamar haven’t been able to crack the top spot that would allow Drake to best the king of pop.
Drake’s 2025 joint album with Partynextdoor, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, led to breakout single Nokia charting at No. 2.
