Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has named Drake’s ICEMAN the best album of 2026, telling Spotify in a new conversation about the music that soundtracks his year that the Drake ICEMAN best album case starts with one simple test: the record has no skips. The Oklahoma City Thunder star, the NBA’s back-to-back MVP and a fellow Canadian, made the pick on November 12 and did not hedge it.
The timing gives the quote its weight. Album of the year season is open, three major rap albums are fighting for the same crown, and the most decorated Canadian in basketball just planted his flag beside the most decorated Canadian in rap. For a Toronto audience, this is two hometown stories meeting in one sentence: Hamilton’s Gilgeous-Alexander, at the top of the NBA, cosigning Toronto’s Drake at the top of the charts.
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The Drake ICEMAN Best Album Case, In His Words
Gilgeous-Alexander laid out his reasoning in the Spotify conversation, clips of which were shared by RapTV and reported by ItsBizKit on November 12:
I think Iceman is the best album of 2026. One, I think it has no skips.
He went further on Drake himself, laughing that his one take guaranteed to set a room off is calling Drake the greatest rapper of all time, adding that whenever he says it, all the older guys go crazy. It is a player’s opinion, not a chart ruling, but it lands differently coming from an athlete whose own season is built on the same standard he is praising: no wasted possessions, no skips.
The Numbers Behind The Pick
The commercial case is already on paper. ICEMAN debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 463,000 first-week units, became the first rap album released in 2026 to pass two billion streams on Spotify, and now stands as the most-streamed rap album of the year. Apple Music has also named Drake its Best Rapper of 2026, and DJ Akademiks made the same album of the year claim for ICEMAN at ComplexCon last month.
The Canadian chart picture backs the momentum at home. On this week’s Apple Music Canada chart, Drake holds multiple places at once, with Janice STFU at No. 6 and his appearance on Future’s Ya Hit at No. 9, while Tate McRae’s Housewife spends a third week at No. 1. The ICEMAN era is not a one-week story in Canada; it is sitting inside a chart that Canadian artists are running from top to bottom.
A Three-Way Album Of The Year Fight
Fans remain split three ways, between ICEMAN, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX and J. Cole’s The Fall Off, all three of them No. 1 debuts. That split is exactly why a quote like this one travels: it is a tiebreaker from inside the culture, from an athlete who hears these records in locker rooms and arenas all season. Gilgeous-Alexander has picked his side loudly and early.
What happens next is the awards calendar. The Grammy nominations arrive on November 16, and the album of the year conversation that SGA just joined will get its official shortlists. Until then, the loudest Canadian endorsement of 2026 belongs to the MVP, and it belongs to Drake.
