A History of Drake’s Merch, ‘Summer Sixteen’ to ‘Certified Lover Boy’

When it comes to style, Drake might not be the first name that comes to mind for some people. But when you’re the biggest rapper on planet Earth, you eventually find your lane. Drake has certainly been able to up his game in recent years, with a love for custom Tom Ford and Stone Island becoming signatures from his wardrobe.

If Drizzy isn’t sitting courtside flexing Visvim grails or stepping out with $1 million fits in London, he’s got that owl on him. What started out as an imprint early in his career responsible for a handful of merch items has grown into a full-fledged brand on its own. Of course it will always be linked to Drake, but the OVO brand is more than some fan merch now. It boasts flagships in major cities like Toronto, New York, Tokyo, and London. It has collaborated with names like Canada Goose, Clarks, DSquared2, Takashi Murakami, and Jordan Brand. That golden owl can really be a uniform for you, if you want it to be.

But that hasn’t stopped Drake from producing some great merch along the way as well. Whether it’s a Toronto Raptors giveaway, official collabs with Nike, or a new round of goods on display at the arena stand during his world tours, there have been a vast array of items for his fans to choose from.

With Certified Lover Boy finally here and a new round of Nike T-shirts displaying some signature Drake quotables being used to promote the project getting released at wedding chapels across the country as we speak, we decided to take a look back at some of Drake’s most memorable tour merch. Check out the list below. —Mike DeStefano

When Drake and Lil Wayne teamed up for a co-headlining tour in 2014, they collaborated with Capcom to emphasize the competitive theme. The merch reflected the name of the tour with T-shirts, hoodies, caps, and other apparel decorated with graphics inspired by Capcom’s Street Fighter video game series.—Lei Takanashi

Throughout his career, Drake has made it very clear how much Houston means to him. It’s where his first sold out concert took place. More importantly, it is also where he met Lil Wayne for the first time before he would sign to Young Money, which kickstarted his path to global superstardom. To show his gratitude, Drake began Houston Appreciation Week in 2014, a weekend of festivities in H-Town that included pop-ups and concerts. The inaugural merch capsule is particularly rare and featured special graphics inspired by the city’s legends like Pimp C, DJ Screw, and J. Prince. —Mike DeStefano

The success of the 2015 single "Hotline Bling" was ridiculous. Originally a loosey thrown onto Soundcloud, the record skyrocketed in popularity after its release. It was blessed with an absolutely legendary, and endlessly memed music video, and is arguably the biggest mainstream hit that Drake has ever had. So, of course there was some merch involved. While plenty of unofficial versions would be sold at various retailers, OVO also dropped its own official dad caps mimicking the pink and white cover art for the massively popular hit record. —Mike DeStefano

Drake’s fifth headlining tour in 2017 supported the release of his 2016 project Views and his 2017 mixtape More Life. The merch for Boy Meets World was heavily inspired by the work of Andy Warhol. Long sleeve T-shirts featured monochrome portraits of Drake screenprinted back to back, while others featured neon flowers that were also reminiscent of Warhol’s paintings. Arc logo hoodies that read “More Life” were also up for grabs. Since the tour only touched down in Europe and Australia, this merch is rarer for Drizzy’s North American fanbase. Furthermore, with More Life featuring a slew of Grime artists such as Giggs and Skepta, you already know Drake had to get exclusive Stone Island merch made. Along with an iced out Stone Island compass chain by Ben Baller, Drake was seen wearing pieces that were not available for concertgoers. Screenshots from his Oliver El-Khatib’s Instagram story suggest that the merch was produced in highly limited numbers—as little as 23 pieces for select items. Recently, a Boy Meets World x Stone Island face mask surfaced on Grailed and quickly sold for $120.—Lei Takanashi

In the middle of the merch craze catapulted by Kanye West a few years ago, Drake sold this collection throughout his co-headlining Summer Sixteen tour with Future. The most recognizable items were black based T-shirts, hoodies, and baseball jerseys with block orange and yellow “Revenge” lettering arching across the chest, a nod to the “Looking for revenge” line in his track “Summer Sixteen.” Other versions followed the same formula like a pink long sleeve with green text reading “Controlla” or “One Dance” alluding to two memorable cuts from Views. —Mike DeStefano

Before Virgil Abloh customized a Patek Philippe and designed a cloud-covered private jet for Drake, the two came together for exclusive merch. T-shirt were released to mark the one-night-only "Day Party With Drake and Virgil Abloh" at the Brooklyn Mirage in August 2018. Each had a small logo on the chest with the orange colorway featuring a $1 billion check that read "Check Over Stripes" as a nod to Drizzy's infamous line in Travis Scott's "Sicko Mode" on the back. The white option had feature film-esque credits. —Mike DeStefano

One of Drake’s most expansive lines of album and tour merch was for his 2018 project Scorpion and his Aubrey and The Three Amigos tour. Customizable satin tour jackets, hoodies, long sleeves, T-shirts, shorts, socks, and hats were offered at pop-ups and online. However, select pieces have become full blown grails. A small run of Scorpion hoodies embroidered by Matthew Burgess go for high resale prices on the secondary market today. A leather jacket that commemorates Drake’s joint tour with the Migos is also a rare and pricey piece of Drake merch resold on Grailed.—Lei Takanashi

Drake made a ton of merch to coincide with the release of Scorpion in 2018. But none of it was as unexpected as the official capsule paying homage to Atlanta’s iconic Magic City strip club. Items included T-shirts, hoodies, and sweatpants with raining red dollar bill graphics accompanied by the phrase “Glad Gang Sweeping Up Since ‘85” and “Magic City All Star.” —Mike DeStefano

This merch from the Scorpion era was released to commemorate the single “Mob Ties.” The crew neck featured the song’s title printed in the same font as the title of the classic mafia film "The Godfather." The back also featured a Rap-A-Lot Records logo, which was a subtle nod to Drake’s mentor J. Prince, and apurple devil emoji, which Drake constantly used on social media at the time to tease Kanye West during Drizzy’s beef with G.O.O.D. Music.—Lei Takanashi

Despite a formidable history of album and tour merch, none of it had as much anticipation as the upcoming Certified Lover Boy collection with Nike. Fans first got a preview of the new apparel in the “Only You Freestyle” video when various people were rocking a black hoodie with the yellow “CLB” logo. The “Laugh Now Cry Later” video followed that and gave fans the first look at a pink varsity jacket covered in quilted hearts. The sneak previews haven’t stopped since. There’s Nike socks with red hearts, a cap with red lips, a graphic of Cupid in a ski mask, and a T-shirt bearing a portrait of the Lejonhjärta twins. And Nike's sending all of Drake’s close friends and collaborators early packs. Maybe I’m falling victim to some recency bias, but whenever fans can actually get the chance to cop some of this stuff and not just look at it on famous people's IG Stories, it’s going to be tough to acquire. Say what you want about Drake’s personal style, but how many celebrities have official album merch with Nike accompanied by a video on its Beaverton campus? Nobody else. Just him. —Mike DeStefano

It’s become a meme of sorts. But one thing we can guarantee whenever new Drake music drops is the plethora of Instagram captions using his lyrics that will follow. It seems that Drake has taken his awareness of this phenomenon to a new level with his most recent batch of Certified Lover Boy merch. The front is simple enough, a small Nike Swoosh intertwined with a pink rose placed at the center of the chest. The back of each black T-shirt is home to various one-liners we can only assume are pulled from tracks on the album. Admittedly, and probably intentionally, they’re pretty corny too. “Should’ve Said You Loved Me Today Because Tomorrow Is A New Day” and “I Don’t Miss…Let Alone Miss You” are some examples of the phrases that are also currently plastered on giant billboards in Toronto. Flexing his official Nike partnership, there is even a design that repurposes the logo of Nike athlete and NBA champion Giannis Antetokounmpo (aka the Greek Freak) to read “I Need a Freak.”

The pop-ups that have been dishing out the merch lean into the “Lover Boy” demeanor even further by taking place at shoddy wedding chapels across the country. On Wednesday, for example, the T-shirts were available at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. It’s the type of merch that no normal person can really wear in public without looking silly. But these phrases are peak Drake-isms and definitely set the tone for the type of album we are about to hear. —Mike DeStefano