Drake has signed on as an investor and collaborator with Los Angeles-based sustainability and financial services startup Aspiration, the company tells Rolling Stone.
The rapper joins other celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., and Orlando Bloom in investing in Aspiration, but Drake’s partnership goes deeper than financial backing: He will use Aspiration’s personal and enterprise services to monitor and cut down his own carbon footprint, the company’s execs say, with the hope of making his personal life carbon neutral. Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg declined to give specifics on how much Drake invested. But, on the collaboration front, Sanberg says his team is working with Drake — whose environmental footprint is larger than the average person’s, given the star’s frequent travel and Hollywood lifestyle — to cut down his environmental footprint.
Aspiration offers environmentally-focused financial services, positioning itself as a sustainable alternative to other banks and fintech companies because it doesn’t invest in fossil fuel companies or other non-sustainable endeavors. It also gives its customers tools to track their carbon footprint and put some of their spending toward tree planting and charitable donations. For example, Aspiration has a credit card with an option to round up every customers’ purchase to the nearest dollar to go towards planting trees. Aspiration currently has five million users and has planted 15 million trees from its users’ financial activity, the company says.
“The way we deliver carbon neutrality for Drake or larger partners of that size is with the extra analysis our team applies to all the things they’re doing in their lives,” Sanberg says. “They give us information with travel and activities that’ll have a carbon footprint, and then we draw on our reforestation program in excess of what we’d do for an everyday consumer. But fundamentally, we’re delivering the same outcome for them as we can deliver for anyone who wants to open an Aspiration credit card, and that’s knowing they’re aligning their money and their values.”
The Drake deal is the latest in a busy celebrity investment cycle, buoyed by artists who have spent the past year looking to other revenue streams and business opportunities while the touring business shuttered.
Through Drake, Aspiration hopes to evangelize its concept to millions of fans and other influential artists who might want to jump on the platform. Drake and Aspiration are currently exploring how to implement the company’s services in his professional life as well as his personal one. (A career as a global music artist carries a hefty physical impact — from printing vinyl and CDs to charting an international tour shipping tons of cargo, flying in jets, and taking buses all over the world.)
“We want this to be the beginning of a trend,” Sanberg says. “Part of our intention here is making the music industry sustainable. This is our first leadership move together with, I’d argue, the most influential artist in the world, and I can’t think of a better partner to open this book that we’re going to write. And I think that kind of audacious vision is exactly what Drake is in for.”
In a statement, Drake said he is excited to partner with a “company that’s found a simple way to offer everyone the ability to reduce their carbon footprint,” and that “Aspiration’s approach to climate change is really inspiring and I hope together we can help to motivate and create awareness.”
NEWS
Say what you will about the UMG defamation lawsuit over "Not Like Us," but it hasn't been difficult for Drake to stay on top in any case. Whether you think the industry is trying to take him down or people dismissed him as their champion, you're probably missing the big picture.
According to Hip Hop All Day on Twitter, the Toronto superstar became the first rapper to surpass 5 billion streams on Spotify in 2025, continuing his stretch this year as the most streamed rapper on the platform. Others aren't too far behind, but these continually impressive commercial numbers are hard to knock off.
Of course, there are a few reasons for this. One of them is the OVO mogul's recent collab album with PARTYNEXTDOOR, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U. Both the Billboard Hot 100 success of the solo cut "NOKIA" plus rapid sales for the project as a whole translate to a whole lot of engagement on the digital streaming platform.
Another driving factor behind Drake's numbers is the anticipation for his next album (albeit with no release date), which he recently confirmed he's working on during a gambling livestream with Adin Ross. As such, we imagine a lot of die-hards are probably coming back to their favorite catalog material to prepare for their wildest dreams – if they weren't already bumping The Boy nonstop to begin with.
Even Kanye West is giving the 6ix God his props these days, even though his long-standing beef with Drizzy is constantly a subject of his flip-flopping tendencies. "This is the biggest victory in music history, right here," Ye said of the UMG lawsuit. "I'm never finna call Drake out of his name. I'm Team Drake, 100 percent. And Team Kendrick, and Team All Of Us... Kendrick needs to be going at UMG at this point. [...] Like, let's stop aiming all this at each other. You have no idea. Everything is worth everything for a moment like this. Where we stop going at each other and we go at the slave masters."
Will Drake be successful and impactful with this? That's up to the court to decide, and up to the industry and its artists to reckon with following their decision. But in the meantime, that Spotify revenue is looking beefy.
