Drake has finally revealed what FOMO is. Fear of Missing Out, the project he spent weeks teasing through cryptic images and CD-style artwork, arrived September 15 as an hour-long film filled with new music, elaborate videos, cameos and scenes from his summer.
Drake had described the project as a “not so short film” and “self-funded surrealism,” framing it around making the most of one summer with the people closest to him. The finished version moves between music-video sequences and loosely connected lifestyle footage rather than following a conventional plot.
Pitchfork describes a film that moves from Drake riding a neon-green speedboat and working out to appearances from Sexyy Red, previously unreleased music and a new version of Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” featuring Don Toliver.
The project also carries a larger argument about where rap visuals fit in 2026. Before the premiere, Drake pushed back against claims that hip-hop is losing cultural power and that ambitious music videos no longer matter. His answer was not another four-minute clip, but roughly an hour of music built to be watched.
FOMO Plays Like a Visual Album
Calling FOMO a short film only partially describes what Drake made.
The project does not rely on a single continuous narrative. Instead, it moves through connected vignettes, standalone music-video sequences, candid-looking footage and deliberately heightened glimpses of Drake’s world.
There is the lime-green speedboat introduced in the teaser. There are workouts, cars, jewelry and friends. Sexyy Red appears, as does Drake’s mother, Sandi Graham. Some scenes look like polished individual videos, while others feel closer to pieces of an unusually expensive summer diary.
Complex characterizes the film as a mixture of familiar songs receiving new visuals and previously unheard material appearing for the first time, without a conventional storyline connecting every sequence.
That structure makes FOMO closer to a visual album or extended video collection than a narrative short. Drake is not building an hour around one song; he is using film as the container for a much larger stretch of music.
Several tracks from his 2026 output appear along the way. XXL lists songs including “Cheetah Print,” “Outside Tweaking,” “Amazing Shape,” “True Bestie,” “New Bestie,” “WNBA,” “Road Trips,” “I’m Spent,” “Rusty” and “White Bone.”
New Drake Music Runs Through FOMO
The unreleased material gives the film another purpose: FOMO doubles as a place to hear Drake music that has not necessarily arrived as a conventional streaming release.
Previously unheard tracks appear without every song being immediately separated into its own single, artwork and rollout. Viewers therefore encounter some of the music inside the film before knowing where it fits into Drake’s next release cycle.
One of the most recognizable new pieces is his reworking of Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” featuring Don Toliver.
Drake slows the country-pop hit down and moves it toward a hazier R&B and rap setting. Toliver’s presence further separates the new version from a straightforward guest remix, helping reshape the track around the atmospheric vocal style both artists frequently use.
Consequence notes that FOMO contains multiple country-inspired moments alongside the “Choosin’ Texas” interpolation, extending Drake’s long history of pulling sounds and references from outside a narrowly defined rap lane.
The choice is especially conspicuous because Langley’s original became a major country hit. Rather than simply placing a Drake verse over the existing record, FOMO presents the song through a different rhythmic and vocal atmosphere.
Texas itself is hardly new territory in Drake’s catalog. Houston has appeared repeatedly in his music and career, stretching back through “Houstatlantavegas,” “November 18th” and his longstanding connections to the city’s rap culture.
The Houston Chronicle examines the new version from that distinctly Texas perspective, adding a regional layer to what could otherwise look like another high-profile interpolation.
Other unreleased pieces scattered throughout FOMO remain less clearly defined. Drake has not announced a standalone soundtrack or explained whether every unheard track in the film will eventually reach streaming services individually.
Drake Says Music Videos Still Matter
The scale of FOMO makes more sense beside Drake’s comments immediately before the premiere.
He addressed a recurring conversation around hip-hop’s changing position in popular music, writing that people “keep saying our genre is dying.” He also pointed to claims that music videos no longer matter and that audiences are no longer watching or listening in the same way.
Drake’s response was simple: “I still care.”
The comments, quoted by Complex, reflect Drake’s position rather than an established conclusion that hip-hop itself is dying. The genre’s commercial position, chart dominance and audience have changed over time, while rap has also fragmented across scenes, sounds and platforms that are not always captured by one traditional measure of mainstream success.
Music-video consumption has changed too. Short-form platforms allow a few seconds of a song or visual to circulate globally without requiring audiences to watch an entire official video. Some songs become enormous before a traditional video is even released.
Drake is responding to that environment by moving in the opposite direction.
He connected the excitement around making FOMO to “Best I Ever Had,” his 2009 breakthrough video directed by Kanye West. That clip arrived at a point when an official rap video could still function as a major cultural introduction, particularly for an artist crossing from mixtape recognition into mainstream visibility.
“Best I Ever Had” helped put a visual identity around Drake just as his career was accelerating. More than 15 years later, he is invoking that same excitement while making something dramatically longer and more fragmented.
The comparison makes FOMO more than a nostalgia exercise. Drake is arguing through the scale of the project that music video remains worth significant creative investment even if the way audiences encounter those visuals has changed.
The Film Caps an Unusual 2026 Rollout
FOMO arrives after a year in which Drake has repeatedly blurred the boundary between releasing music and creating an event around it.
Earlier in 2026, what had initially been presented as one project called Iceman ultimately became three releases: Iceman, Maid of Honour and Habibti.
The rollout included an enormous block of ice installed in a Toronto parking lot, with fans attempting to break through it to uncover information hidden inside. It was an intentionally physical stunt surrounding music that would ultimately live largely on digital services.
Drake has also released 18 music videos during the year and more than two hours of new music, Pitchfork notes.
FOMO consolidates those instincts. Instead of separating music, video and lifestyle imagery across another sequence of individual releases, Drake bundles them into one long-form project.
The film itself was teased for weeks before anyone knew exactly what it was. Drake began posting old family photographs captioned “FOMO 2026” in August, then shared artwork resembling a CD jewel case carrying the full Fear of Missing Out title.
The imagery encouraged speculation that another album was coming. A later teaser finally identified FOMO as a film “directed and scored by the family.” Rolling Stone Canada traces that rollout from the early clues through the eventual film announcement.
The ambiguity became part of the release. Until Drake clarified the format, FOMO could plausibly have been an album, visual project or another piece of a larger campaign.
FOMO Briefly Disappears From YouTube
The premiere produced another wrinkle almost immediately.
FOMO appeared on YouTube on September 15 before disappearing from the platform shortly afterward. Drake announced its return September 17, and the film became available again.
Complex confirms the return after the temporary removal.
The brief disappearance carried an obvious irony for a project called Fear of Missing Out, although Drake did not initially provide a detailed public explanation for why the YouTube version vanished.
The film had been promoted for release across YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music. Drake has also emphasized its self-funded nature and described the people around him as central to its creation.
By September 17, the immediate availability problem was resolved. The larger question became what Drake intends to do with the unreleased music introduced inside it.
Drake Confirms Plans to Tour in 2027
The FOMO premiere also delivered one piece of news that extends beyond the film: Drake says he plans to tour again in 2027.
No dates, cities, venues or ticket details have been announced. Pitchfork notes the tour announcement alongside the film’s premiere and new music.
The timing creates an obvious possible destination for songs introduced throughout FOMO, although Drake has not said which unreleased tracks will become standalone releases or eventually appear in a live set.
There is also no separate FOMO soundtrack currently announced. Some music heard in the film could eventually arrive individually, while other pieces may remain connected to the project or surface as part of something else.
For now, the confirmed next step is broader than another video. Drake has announced plans to return to the road in 2027, but the schedule and ticket information remain unknown.