Anthony Fantano has come forward to admit that he lied about being fed information regarding the release of Drake's new album, Iceman.
Last week, the music critic took to TikTok to share with his followers that he had some exclusive news. "Drake, Iceman: it is happening," he said. "Based on my exclusive source, Iceman will be dropping in the next 36 hours. Keep an eye out, keep an ear out. Iceman in 36 hours. You're welcome."
As fans waited with bated breath, 36 hours passed and nothing materialized from Drizzy or his OVO camp. It wasn't until earlier this week, through the melting of an ice sculpture fan activation, that the actual release date for Iceman was revealed, May 15.
Following news of the official release date, Fantano shared a video (visible at the top of this page) and accompanying article in which he discussed his original announcement, admitting that he had not, in fact, been in touch with any "exclusive" source, and that his video post about Iceman was instead a "social experiment."
"Basically every Drake-connected media sycophant or Stan on social media, week-in and week-out, [is] talking about how, 'The album is dropping. It's so soon; It's almost here. Freak out, get hype; I've heard it, it's the greatest thing I've ever heard from him. Oh my God,' which for the length of time this pattern has been repeating, it's actually kinda had the opposite effect in terms of making people more excited for Iceman," Fantano said of the album's rollout.
"And whether it's Drake or people on his team directly instructing this behavior to keep discourse about the album going, or if these people are just merely incentivized by the attention economy on the internet, either way it's not good," he added, before explaining why he chose to pump fake 6 God fans.
"This past week, merely out of a desire to engage in a little social experiment, I decided to come online and just say that I knew Iceman was going to drop this past weekend, and that it was going to come out in 36 hours, and an 'exclusive source' that I had told me this information," Fantano said.
He then proceeded to provide receipts, showing an alleged text conversation he had with his partner prior to his Iceman video, proposing the idea of spreading the fake news, as well as a similar conversation he had with journalist and former MTV host Touré.
Going on to speak about not understanding why a number of "rap pages" and people like DJ Akademiks would believe that he, of all people, would have been fed exclusive information given that he's perceived to be a "Drake hater," Fantano then drove home his reason for the fake news.
"I just made it up because that's literally what everyone who's been promoting Drake and this album for the past four months has been doing," he said. "And continuing to push the hype for Iceman in this way, unfortunately, has gotten away from Drake and his team a little bit, given that someone like me can just announce randomly that the album is dropping in 36 hours and everybody goes into a fucking tailspin over it."
Despite their now being an apparent official release date for Drake's much anticipated new album, Fantano added that he hopes Iceman drops soon "because if it doesn't, I'm going to keep saying it's about to drop because why the hell not? That's what everyone else is doing."
