Maid of Honour (album)

Maid of Honour's lead single, "Which One", was released on July 25, 2025. A snippet of the track was first previewed during Drake's "Iceman: Episode 1" livestream on July 5, and was previewed again on July 12, during the second day of his three-day Wireless Festival performance.^[6] On July 24, three weeks after releasing the single "What Did I Miss?" for Iceman, Drake premiered "Which One" in full during the "Iceman: Episode 2" livestream.^[7][8][9]

The album was surprise released on May 15, 2026, alongside Habibti, following the "Iceman: Episode 4" livestream a day prior; the CN Tower was fully illuminated ice-blue and visual projections were used to make it appear completely frozen to promote the releases.^[10][11] The cover art for Maid of Honour shows a photograph of Drake's family, with his mother Sandi Sher-Graham centered holding a bridal bouquet, with a photo of a young Drake and his father Dennis Graham imposed over.^[12] The cover art was shared via Drake's Instagram album on May 14, just prior to the album's release.^[13]

Maid of Honour has been compared to Drake's albums More Life (2017) and Honestly, Nevermind (2022), which incorporated club, dancehall and house music.^[14]

The album's opening track, "Hoe Phase", features a "moody" atmosphere that Alphonse Pierre of Pitchfork compared to Drake's 2009 mixtape So Far Gone,^[14] with its latter half incorporating Afrobeats and amapiano rhythms.^[15] Jeff Ihaza of Rolling Stone praised it as "a dazzling display of how dance music, unlike traditional hip-hop, thrives on fluidity".^[16] Awarded Pitchfork's "Best New Track" award,^[17] "Cheetah Print" is a hip house and electro song that samples Peggy Gou's "(It Goes Like) Nanana". Drake raps with robotic vocal effects;^[14] his flirts throughout the track were described by Walden Green of Pitchfork as "half-hearted [...] but in a charming way",^[17] and Craig Jenkins of Vulture argued his lyricism in the latter half was contradictory to Drake's claim that "'innocent Drake' [was] never coming back" from "Make Them Know" on Iceman.^[18] Sexyy Red appears halfway through the song for a "real freak" verse interpolating "Cha Cha Slide" into a "thottier version of the dance".^{[14][19][16][20]} "Which One" features an "island-tinged" Afrobeat and dancehall inspired instrumental.^[21] Narratively, it depicts Drake and Central Cee addressing respective love interests, with Drake noting how she stands out from her friends and enemies and Central Cee noting her physical appearance and sexuality.^[22] "BBW" (a shortened form of the term "big beautiful woman") features elements of Mantronix-esque electro and techno,^[14] with a beat switch to "marauding" baile funk^[23] and an "explosion" of distorted synths in the second half.^[24] Pierre compared it to music at the Berlin nightclub Berghain;^[14] Kiana Fitzgerald of Consequence described the track as a "knockoff" of Drake's 2018 song "Nice for What" for plus-size women,^[25] and singled out the lyric "So much ass [ash], you should be cremated" for criticism, a sentiment echoed by August Brown of the Los Angeles Times.^[26]

"New Bestie" features a mid-song transition to Jersey club, with Drake's "patois-inflected" vocal delivery being called a homage to dancehall artist Vybz Kartel and "a callback to [Drake's] More Life era" by The Fader's Hajin Yoo.^[20] A new jack swing song with elements of bounce music,^[14][18] "Stuck" features lyrics about being caught in a relationship limbo; Pierre and Jenkins compared it to 1990s R&B acts Mint Condition and Keith Sweat, respectively.^[14][18] "Goose and the Juice" combines "gated reverb and Auto-Tuned pillow talk", according to Jenkins;^[18] Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times compared it to the work of rock band MGMT.^[26] Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of the Financial Times argued that the album's closing track, "Princess", which features emo-inspired singing and instrumentation, is Drake "trolling humourless rap purists. The last laugh [after the Lamar feud] is his".^[27] Pierre described the song as "a 16 year old with an XXXTentacion poster on his wall",^[14] while Robert Moran of the Sydney Morning Herald noted its similarities to the Pixies' song "Where Is My Mind?", describing it as "oddly endearing".^[23] Ihaza hailed it as Drake's "most divisive left turn in years".^[16]

Ihaza argued Maid of Honour's varied sound explores increasing cultural literacy and rising multiculturalism in Western societies, writing: "The album's underlying argument is not that identity no longer matters, but that culture itself has become too unstable, interconnected, and diasporic to survive [any] authenticity politics". He also wrote that by Drake being "strangely honest" about rising multiculturalism on Maid of Honour, it recasts Lamar's critiques of Drake as "inauthentic" during their feud to actually demonstrate "[Drake's] prudent understanding of [culturally changing] times".^[16] This was echoed by Moran, who said that Maid of Honour "is determinedly global" and hinted its diverse content as denoting cultural pluralism, writing that "Maid of Honour might be the ultimate expression of Drake as cross-cultural agitator".^[28] Tom Breihan of Stereogum likened the use of interjections across the album to drag-ball culture, writing it "suggests a level of comfort with queerness that [an artist like] Drake has never approached before".^[29] Speaking of the albums broadly, Jenkins also commented on their multicultural influences, saying each of them "dabble in Arabic phrases" and "nod to [Drake's] Muslim associates", concluding the albums "acknowledges Toronto as home to countless faiths and races, to Black and Arab experiences" and ensure "appeal to all the proverbial political aisles".^[18]

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	67/100[30]
Review scores
Source	Rating
The Arts Desk	[31][b]
Consequence	C+[25]
The Guardian	[24][b]
NME	7.0/10[32]
Rolling Stone	[16]
The Sydney Morning Herald	[23]
Pitchfork	8.0/10[14]
Variety	8.2/10[33]

Close

According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Maid of Honour received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 67 out of 100 from 7 critic scores.^[30]

Jeff Ihaza for Rolling Stone called Maid of Honour the "crown jewel" of the three-album release, and Drake's best work since his mixtape More Life. He praised its varied production, saying there "isn't another rapper operating at Drake's scale engaging this deeply with niche Black regional sounds", and specifically highlighted "Cheetah Print", "Amazing Shape", "Hoe Phase" and "Outside Tweaking". He concluded by saying "[the] album draws from Black musical traditions that are often maligned in the mainstream... Queer nightlife, dancehall, and house music [all] braid seamlessly across the album".^[16] Writing for The Arts Desk, Thomas H. Green wrote that Maid of Honour "is musically more fun" than Iceman or Habibti, highlighting "Cheetah Print" and "BBW" but criticized the album for "drip[ping] with sweaty tumescent male lust".^[31]

Writing for Pitchfork, Alphonse Pierre called Maid of Honour "the best album in Drake's comeback trilogy", praising its varied production for being "completely unpredictable" (highlighting "Hoe Phase", "New Bestie" and "BBW", in particular) and Drake's performance on "Cheetah Print", "Stuck", "Amazing Shape" and "Princess", concluding that Drake can "pick up the pieces and reclaim his title as hip-hop’s ultimate hitmaker".^[14] NME's Kyann-Sian Williams praised "Amazing Shape" as "a warm ode to Drake’s long-standing connection to Jamaican music" and labelled "Cheetah Print" as "ridiculous" but "dumb enough to become accidentally addictive".^[19] In a review for the Financial Times, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney wrote Drake's "talents shine" on Maid of Honour and said that its "ribald" content is handled in "a much livelier, more comical fashion [than Habibti], abetted by cameos from Sexyy Red and Central Cee".^[27]

In a mixed review of the three albums, Roisin O'Connor of The Independent called Maid of Honour "a breath of fresh air" for Drake, commending the album for "its playful skits, catchy melodies, smart samples and guest features". O'Connor singled out "Amazing Shape" with Popcaan, the "infectious" "Which One" with Central Cee, and Drake's "low [and] sexy" performance on "BBW" for praise.^[34] Robert Moran of the Sydney Morning Herald said that "Maid of Honour [shows] Drake [is a] cosmopolitan pop innovator", praising the production on "New Bestie" and "Hoe Phase" and also commended "Road Trips", "Stuck" and "Cheetah Print". He also wrote that the album "[is] sprawling, experimental, weird, fun and brimming with hooks. It feels like a template for tomorrow’s pop charts".^[28] Craig Jenkins of Vulture called Maid of Honour the "highlight of the [three-album] package", praised it for its inclusion and performances of its female artists, and praised the production on "Stuck" and "Goose and the Juice", concluding by writing, "[the album] lounges almost entirely in a spirit of moonlit longing, yielding some of the most left-field moves of Drake's [career]".^[18]

In the United States, Maid of Honour debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 110,000 album equivalent album units. This was comprised of 104,000 streaming equivalent units (equaling 105.48 million on-demand official streams of the album's 14 tracks) and 6,000 pure album sales. With Iceman and Habibti debuting at number one and two, respectively, Drake became the first artist ever to hold the top three spots on the Billboard 200 concurrently.^[35]

In the United Kingdom, Maid of Honour opened at number six on the UK Albums Chart, while Iceman reached number one and Habibti opened at number seven. This made Drake the first artist to debut three studio albums inside the UK top 10 simultaneously,^[36] and marked his fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth albums to debut in the UK top 10.^[37][38]

In Australia, Maid of Honour debuted at number five on the ARIA Charts, while Iceman reached number one and Habibti opened at number six. The releases marked Drake's fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth Australian top 10 albums and made him the first artist to debut three new albums in the same week in the top 10.^[39] In New Zealand, Maid of Honour debuted at number six on the New Zealand Albums Chart, while Iceman reached number one and Habibti opened at number five.^[40]

All tracks are principally written by Aubrey Graham. Full credits are not available at this time; production credits have been adapted from HotNewHipHop.^[41][15]