“I’m a pop star, but this shit ain’t bubblegum / You would probably think my manager is Scooter Braun.”
That’s what Drake raps a minute into “Popstar,” an airy new collab with DJ Khaled that dropped on Friday (July 17). It was just one of Aubrey’s several references to, you guessed it, pop stars — “Look, Ariana, Selena, my Visa / It can take as many charges as it needs to” and “Shit don’t even usually get this big without a Bieber face” — as well as one of two songs the pair released simultaneously.
The more melodic “Greece,” meanwhile, finds Drake accessing a much higher vocal register than he’s been showcasing lately. It’s a breezy piece of escapist trap&B that finds the, ahem, pop star listing off all the things you and him could do together on a jaunt through the Mediterranean. “Come with me, leave all of your things, yeah / We can stop at Gucci, stop at Louis V, yeah,” he sings. “Come with me, fly you out to Greece / Full speed, survoler Paris.”
Both comprise what Khaled’s been calling “THE 2 KEYS ???” and “THE 2 ANTHEMS ???” while promoting the songs on Instagram. And both arrive right as we enter the dog days of summer, where a flex about celebrity and a daydream about exotic locales both sound quite pleasant.
Khaled also shared more homemade visual companions for each track on his Instagram page. For “Popstar,” he’s in the back of a luxury car on a nighttime joyride, while “Greece” finds him partying in a pool with his wife.
They’re both slated to appear on Khaled’s new album, Khaled Khaled, at some point in the perhaps near future. In the meantime, check out both tracks (with owl- and key-heavy visualizers, of course) above.
