Watch the official video for Drake's 'Hotline Bling'

Drake’s come good on his Instagram teasing that the official video for Hotline Bling would arrive on October 19. After posting a pic with ‘October 19’ written in the same ‘1-800-Hotline-Bling’ font as his huge hit’s cover art, the Toronto rapper’s dropped the visuals today (it's still the 19th in the States even if we're a day ahead down under!). In a nice surprise, the video's a pristine, well-lit studio-shot affair - unlike most of Drake's videos, which take place in murky, dark nightclubs. It continues to roll with the slightly absurdist vein Drake established in the Energy video, and plays out kind of like a more bizarre version of the Beauty School Dropout scene in the film Grease, beginning in a pastel pink hued call-centre, before moving to a series of Golden Eye-esque frames featuring shadows of females posing along staircases and dancing against colourful backlit screens. These scenes are interspersed with Drake singin' and chillin' in a cube...wearing a pair of candy pink kicks. Watch it below:

 You don’t need us to tell you that Hotline Bling has been getting a heap of airplay on every radio station worth its salt across the globe (including commercial stations in Australia, and triple j). Over in the States, the track has steadily climbed the all-important Billboard chart since its debut on the Toronto rapper’s OVO Sound Beats 1 radio show in July, when Drake played it after one of his Meek Mill diss tracks. While those disses only had a short shelf life, Hotline Bling’s been powering on, holding onto a #2 Billboard spot. Right now, the only man who stands between Drake and his goal is one of his own mentees: fellow Toronto talent The Weeknd, who currently holds the number one slot with The Hills, off his Beauty Behind The Madness album (check the recent Nicki Minaj and Eminmen remixes here). The thought of potentially unseating The Weeknd prompted an emotional outpouring from Drake on his Instagram the other day, saying that he’d “pass out” if the track gets to #1. Said Drake:

“No accolades really matter to me other than the fact that I have never had a billboard number one. If I get my first number one during the month of October it will be the biggest moment of my career to date (in my mind) and if you are looking for me on that particular evening I will be passed out in the water slide that connects to our pool”.

It would certainly be a nice birthday present if Drake got a #1 in October – given that’s his birth month and he’s called his whole record label October’s Very Own (OVO). There’s nothing quite like a video to put the fire in the pants of a hit song – lucky Drake’s got the water in his slippery dip ready to put out the (surely inevitable) #1 heat.

In other Drake news, the OVO hero recently brought out J. Cole during Drake’s show at music festival Austin City Limits (the first weekend of the concert saw Drake bring out Future): the two performed songs No Role Modelz and A Tale of 2 Citiez, before J.Cole did a rendition of his R & B ballad Planes. “This one of the greatest guys that I know in my life. Anytime I call him, he’s there for me,” said Drake of J.Cole during the show. Drake also revealed it would be his last gig of the year, as he spends the rest of 2015 in the studio finishing the recording of his long-awaited LP Views From the 6.

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