Drake and Don Toliver are “Choosin’ Texas” on Their Collaboration “Solar Eclipse”

This year’s biggest song, “Choosin’ Texas” by Ella Langley, surpassed Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” as the longest-running No. 1 single in history. So it makes sense for Drake and Don Toliver, in their first collaboration, to construct a new track atop Langley’s durable country smash.

“Solar Eclipse” appears on the deluxe edition of Drake’s latest LP, Habibti. The Canadian rapper, like Langley, set a new record with his latest album release, his 18^th to top the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart—surpassing both Future and Motown legends The Temptations.

Let’s see what Drake and Toliver find lurking in the Texas shadows.

It Doesn’t Take a Crystal Ball To See

We open with Drake sitting alone, drinking cognac until a Texas girl approaches him, downs shots, and provides an audience for the rapper’s despair.

She’s from Texas, I can tell by the way she grip on my wood grain,
She’s down to take a hundred shots with me and talk about my pain.
It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see,
A cowgirl ends up riding off on me.
Drinkin’ Yak all by myself,
She’s from Texas, I can tell, baby.

Then Drake name-drops Texas football hero Johnny Manziel, who played for Texas A&M and later briefly threw passes for the Cleveland Browns in the NFL. But the Texas girl has moved on from her old haunts in College Station. Now she parties in River Oaks, an affluent community in Houston.

Big wooden wheel, where should I go?
Johnny Manziel with hits that I throw.
College Station nights you used to know,
Now you’re getting fried down in River Oaks, I already know.

She’s From Texas, I Can Tell

Here, Toliver sings about his Houston roots. And similar to how Drake started the jam, Toliver sips cognac alone.

Fort Bend, Texas, Katy, Texas, bae, I can’t make this up (That it’s you, babe).
Sippin’ Yak all by myself (That it’s you, babe).
She’s from Texas, I can tell (That it’s you, babe, yeah).

“Solar Eclipse” is a rap meditation on relationships, Texas culture, and, it seems, drinking alone—propelled by Langley’s chart-buster, “Choosin’ Texas”.

Photo by Simone Joyner/Getty Images for ABA