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A 25-foot ice sculpture in downtown Toronto sounds peaceful enough – until it attracted flamethrowers, sledgehammers, fan frenzy, and eventually the fire brigade.
This was Drake’s way of getting people’s attention. The Canadian rapper installed the towering sculpture in a car park in his hometown to tease his upcoming album ‘ICEMAN’ – a name that given America’s political current climate, could be read as a little tone-deaf.
Crowds gathered quickly, climbing all over the installation, livestreaming the chaos, and posing for photos. Things escalated fast.
Viral clips showed people turning up armed with tools – smashing at the ice with sledgehammers, blasting it with blowtorches, even attempting to melt it down with flamethrowers. At one point, small fires were lit directly on top of the sculpture.
Eventually Toronto-based streamer Kishka, using a mix of force and heat, managed to crack through the top of the structure and discovered a blue bag hidden inside, marked with the words “Freeze the world.”
Following instructions from fellow streamer Adin Ross, Kishka then travelled to the rapper’s Bridle Path mansion, known as “The Embassy.” There, he opened the bag to reveal the long-awaited answer: ‘ICEMAN’ is set for release on 15 May, a date Drake later confirmed online. The streamer then received a second sealed bag filled with stacks of Canadian dollar bills.
By this point, city officials had seen quite enough. Safety concerns prompted them to step in and melt the whole thing down.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow thanked police and fire crews for keeping people safe, while acknowledging the excitement surrounding the stunt. “I can understand why fans are excited, so they want to go and find out what is that date, because that’s what he said is in there,” she said.
Credit where it’s due – even though it was cut short, the giant ice block did exactly what Drizzy would’ve wanted: get people talking and go viral.
Make or break for Drake
The elaborate stunt arrives at a pivotal moment in Drake’s career. ‘ICEMAN’ will mark his first solo release since his highly publicised rap beef with Kendrick Lamar – a clash that dominated the rap world and, in the eyes of pretty much everyone, didn’t go in Drake’s favour. At all.
After several increasingly personal back-and-forth tracks, Lamar comfortably emerged victorious. The killing blow came in the form of ‘Not Like Us’, a devastating diss track that dominated charts globally, broke streaming records, and swept five awards at the 67th Grammy Awards, including Record and Song of the Year.
Drake, unwilling to let it lie, called his lawyers. In January 2025, he filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group alleging both defamation over the track’s allegations and that the label and Spotify had artificially inflated its popularity.
He then amended it. When Kendrick Lamar headlined the Super Bowl halftime show – performing ‘Not Like Us’ to an audience of over 133 million people, the largest in Super Bowl history – Drake added the performance to his defamation case.
The lawsuit was dismissed in October 2025. Another L for the Canadian…
While Drake did release the commercially successful collaborative project, ‘Some Sexy Songs 4 U’ with PartyNextDoor in February 2025 following the beef, ‘ICEMAN’ represents his first opportunity to reassert himself as a solo artist in the aftermath of the feud.