Don Toliver opened up about his first collaborations with Drake, describing the experience as “everything I could possibly ever want.” Speaking at a sold-out GRAMMY Museum event in Los Angeles, the Houston artist reflected on working with one of his longtime musical influences and praised the chemistry behind “Cold Shoulder” and “Solar Eclipse.”
Toliver appeared at the GRAMMY Museum’s Ray Charles Rooftop Terrace on October 6 for “An Evening With Don Toliver,” a 90-minute program moderated by Billboard’s Heran Mamo. The conversation covered his career, creative process and January album OCTANE before turning to his long-awaited first collaborations with Drake.
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For Toliver, the pairing carried personal significance. He grew up listening to Drake’s early work, specifically pointing to the Comeback Season and So Far Gone eras as formative influences. Getting the opportunity to finally record with him therefore represented more than another high-profile collaboration.
He described the experience as “everything I could possibly ever want,” adding that the creative process “all played out how it was supposed to play out.” Don Toliver also singled out “Solar Eclipse” as the kind of collaboration he had hoped to make with Drake for years, calling the finished result “incredible.”
Both songs first appeared in Drake’s FOMO film, which premiered on YouTube on September 15 as a roughly hour-long project featuring a collection of previously unreleased material. “Cold Shoulder” and “Solar Eclipse” subsequently arrived on the expanded edition of Drake’s HABIBTI on October 2, giving the collaborations an official streaming release.
The deluxe added four songs in total: “Solar Eclipse” featuring Don Toliver, “Quebec,” “Classic PT.2” and “Cold Shoulder” featuring Don Toliver and Yebba. Drake had previously suggested that not every track heard in the FOMO film would reach streaming services, but indicated that enough of the requested material would eventually become available.
“Solar Eclipse” quickly emerged as one of the standout additions. The track debuted at No. 7 on Spotify’s Daily Global chart with 2.933 million streams on release day, while its production incorporates a slowed interpolation of Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” creating an unexpected connection between Drake and the country hitmaker.
The collaborations arrive during a major year for Don Toliver, who released OCTANE in January and earned his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. Every track from the project landed on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album has surpassed one billion Spotify streams.
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