Drake Plays Basketball With Kevin Durant in ‘Laugh Now Cry Later’ Video

Drake released “Laugh Now Cry Later,” a new collaboration with Lil Durk, on Thursday at midnight. In the video for the track, which sometimes seems like a lengthy Nike commercial, Drake plays basketball with Kevin Durant and throws around a football with Odell Beckham Jr.

The “Laugh Now Cry Later” beat is brassy and unhurried, a perfect setting for casual bluster: “Been waking up in the crib and sometimes I don’t even know where I’m at,” Drake raps. “Please don’t play that nigga’s songs in this party, I can’t even listen to that/Anytime that I run into somebody, it must be a victory lap.”

“Laugh Now Cry Later” was co-produced by Cardogotwings, GRy, Yung Exclusive, and Roget Chahayed. In an Instagram post, Drake said the song will appear on his forthcoming album, which will be titled Certified Lover Boy. 

Drake has been productive during quarantine, releasing the Dark Lane Demo Tapes collection in May — it narrowly missed the Number One spot on the Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums chart — and following that with other singles: His own “Only You Freestyle” along with a pair of DJ Khaled collaborations, “Pop Star” and “Greece.”

Both songs with DJ Khaled remain in the Top 30 on the Rolling Stone Top 100 Songs chart, pulling in 20 million streams between them last week. Drake’s “Toosie Slide,” “Life Is Good” with Future, and “Chicago Freestyle” with Giveon have also spent months on the RS 100 this year. 

Even as Drake continues to slow-drip hits, he has been at work on a new album. “I remember the last time I had to sit down was when I tore my ACL,” the rapper told Diddy in April. “And I made a great album out of that. Obviously God has us all inside the house right now. Definitely it’s the most excited I’ve been about an album in a long time.… The amount of focus that I’m able to put into this album is probably way different than it would have been.”

“A lot of little stuff has been trickling out, but all the stuff on the album is fresh,” Drake continued. “This is probably the most music I’ve ever been sitting on.”

In May, the rapper promised to release his sixth studio album in “summer 2020.”