Drake's More Life becomes Spotify's best album release ever

Hip-hop heavyweight Drake has broken the record for best first day for an album on the streaming service Spotify.

The 30-year-old star released More Life on Saturday (19 March) – a 22-track album which features collaborations with Kanye West, Travis Scott and Partynextdoor in addition to English rapper Giggs.

A Spotify spokeswoman confirmed to AFP that the release was listened to 61,302,082 times on Sunday, the first full day for the track.

The record edges out the 56,727,861 streams acquired by Ed Sheeran only a few weeks prior when he released Divide on 3 March.

Drake also set a new record for the overall streams for an artist in a single day – again edging out Sheeran.

He achieved the two accolades in spite of labelling the album a "playlist" in order to showcase other talent and experimenting with a Jamaican dancehall style.

Part of the album's success could be down to Drake's fleeting romance with Jennifer Lopez, which enthralled fans and had the internet awash with rumours.

In More Life, Drake opens up about "drunk-texting" J. Lo and sampled her classic hit If You Had My Love in his song Teenage Fever.

Unlike his Views album released last year exclusively to Apple Music, More Life was released on all platforms.

Spotify is the world's largest with 100 million listeners.