2016 was a year that dancehall flourish on the charts and Nigerian singer Wizkid has one more reason to celebrate as his feature collab on Drake’s One Dance with British singer Kyla has been certified Diamond by the RIAA. The single from Drake’s 4th studio album Views was previously certified 8x Multi-Platinum September 25, 2019 by. It is also certified Diamond in France (233,333) and Canada (800,000).
Wizkid becomes the first African artist to be certified Diamond in the U.S. with a single and Drake reclaims the leading certified singles artist titled by the The Recording Industry Association of America® after first taking the throne in 2018.
The dancehall, afro-fusion, hip hop single, co-written by the artists is co-produced Nineteen85 and Noah “40” Shebib, with production assistance from Wizkid. Crazy Cousinz and Kyla received songwriting credits for the sampling of their 2008 UK funky song “Do You Mind”.
“One Dance” was released shortly after the release date for Views was announced in April 2016 alongside “Pop Style”. “One Dance” was accompanied by two other dancehall singles by Drake on the album: “Controlla” which is certified 5x Platinum as of December 8 and “Too Good”.
The track reached number one in 15 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, becoming Drake’s first number-one single in all 15 countries as the lead artist. It topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for 10 non-consecutive weeks and became the joint-second longest consecutive number one in the UK Singles Chart with 15 consecutive weeks at the top.
Subsequently, Wizkid became the first Nigerian artist to (chart on and) top the US Billboard Hot 100. “One Dance” became the second dancehall song of 2016 to top the Billboard Hot 100 after Rihanna’s “Work” which also featured Drake.
After being named Billboard’s 2016 Song of the Summer it quickly sold 2 million copies in the US by December, thus being the fifth-best-selling song of the year.
“One Dance” was the best-performing single worldwide of 2016 and is one of the best-selling digital singles of all-time.
Popcaan debuted an unreleased dubplate remixed version of the successful single at Red Bull’s Culture Clash 2016 in the U.K. It featured unreleased vocals laced with all new verses and choruses and a shoutout to Popcaan himself.
It was the dancehall track that gave Drake his first lead artist No. 1 in his home country of Canada. The single debuted at number 13 on the Canadian Billboard Hot 100 on the week of April 23, 2016 and moved up to number two on the week of April 30, 2016. it eventually peaked at No. 1 on the week of May 7, 2016. He previously topped the chart with the Rihanna collaboration “Work” in March 2016.
The song was promoted without a YouTube official music video which is said to have contributed to its success on the chart in countries where YouTube streams did not influence the singles charts, such as in the UK, as persons were forced to stream it on services such as Spotify or Apple Music, which do count towards the singles charts.
A scene with “One Dance” featured on the South African dance battle short film Please Forgive Me directed by Anthony Mandler, was released on September 26, 2016, exclusively on Apple Music.
See list of certifications and sales below:
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 10× Platinum | 700,000 |
| Belgium | 3× Platinum | 60,000 |
| Canada | Diamond | 800,000 |
| Denmark | 4× Platinum | 360,000 |
| France | Diamond | 233,333 |
| Germany | 2× Platinum | 800,000 |
| Italy | 6× Platinum | 300,000 |
| Mexico | 4× Platinum+Gold | 270,000 |
| New Zealand | 2× Platinum | 30,000* |
| Poland | 3× Platinum | 150,000 |
| Portugal | 5× Platinum | 50,000 |
| Spain | 4× Platinum | 160,000 |
| Sweden | 7× Platinum | 280,000 |
| United Kingdom | 6× Platinum | 3,600,000 |
| United States | Diamond | 10,000,000 |
| Among the world’s best-selling music artists, with over 170 million records sold, Drake is ranked as the highest-certified digital singles artist in the United States by the RIAA. | ||
