After quite a number of show-stealing features over the last year — not the mention the slow-burning success of his own fire anthem “Cha Cha” — D.R.A.M. has finally announced his debut album. And this album cover features a familiar face, the puppy who also pops up in “Broccoli,” a joyful, absurd little collaboration between D.R.A.M. and Lil Yachty that took over the summer.
Here’s the official announcement via D.R.A.M.’s Twitter:
It's been a long time coming y'all, but the time is now. My debut album entitled "Big Baby D.R.A.M." will be released on October 21, 2016! pic.twitter.com/9jrhXpOoNb
— DRAM back (@DRAMsaid) October 5, 2016
Of course, if you’re still in the dark you’ll need to go back to 2014 when his breakout mixtape #1EpicSummer was quietly released on Soundcloud. What wasn’t quiet, though, was the reception that the tape’s standout track “Cha Cha” received. I heard the song of the first time fairly randomly, when Queens rapper Remy Banks brought D.R.A.M. out to perform it at a Brooklyn show, and it was embedded in my head from that moment on.
In early 2015 the “Cha Cha” video dropped, and that tape was pared down into the #1 Epic EP, but before putting out his own album, D.R.A.M. had to go and help Chance and Co. turn Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment’s Surf into the magnificence it was.
Since then, he’s released another EP, Gahdamn!, and also showed up on Coloring Book and the aforementioned Lil Yachty hit — clearly, he has impeccable taste when it comes to collaborators, and that will undoubtedly show up on his own album as well. For those of you keeping track of the best albums of 2016, this one is sure to slip up into the upper echelon.
Big Baby D.R.A.M. is out 10/21.
