''Life of a DON'' (stylized occasionally as ''L.O.A.D.'') is the second studio album by American singer and rapper

Don Toliver Caleb Zackery "Don" Toliver ( ; born June 12, 1994) is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He released his first major label mixtape, ''Donny Womack'', in August 2018. He is known for his singles "No Idea (song), No Idea" and "After Party ...

. It was released on October 8, 2021, through

Cactus Jack Records Cactus Jack Records is a record label founded by American rapper and singer Travis Scott. The label's current acts include Scott, Sheck Wes, Don Toliver, SoFaygo, Luxury Tax, Chase B, and WondaGurl. The label also has their own publishing div ...

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

, and We Run It. The production on the album was handled by multiple producers including Mike Dean,

Mustard Mustard may refer to: Food and plants * Mustard (condiment), a paste or sauce made from mustard seeds used as a condiment * Mustard plant, one of several plants, having seeds that are used for the condiment ** Mustard seed, seeds of the mustard p ...

Metro Boomin Leland Tyler Wayne (born September 16, 1993), professionally known as Metro Boomin, is an American record producer, record executive, beatmaker, and DJ. He is known for his dark production style and its influence on modern hip hop and trap. ...

Allen Ritter Allen Raphael Ritter (born June 19, 1988) is an American record producer and songwriter. He has produced for a variety of artists, most notably Drake ("Controlla"), Travis Scott (" Pick Up the Phone"), Kanye West (" All Day", " Father Stretch M ...

Hit-Boy Chauncey Alexander Hollis Jr. (born May 21, 1987), better known by his stage name Hit-Boy, is an American record producer, rapper, singer, and songwriter. In May 2011, he had signed a two-year deal with Kanye West's GOOD Music production branch. ...

Cardo A cardo (plural ''cardines'') was a north–south street in Ancient Roman cities and military camps as an integral component of city planning. The cardo maximus, or most often the ''cardo'', was the main or central north–south-oriented street ...

and

Sonny Digital Sonny Corey Uwaezuoke (born March 5, 1991), better known by his stage name Sonny Digital, is an American record producer, rapper, and DJ.

among others. The album also features guest appearances from Travis Scott,

Kali Uchis Karly-Marina Loaiza (born July 17, 1994), known professionally as Kali Uchis ( ), is an American singer. She released her debut mixtape, ''Drunken Babble'', in 2012, which was followed by her debut EP, ''Por Vida'', released in 2015. In 2018, Uc ...

Baby Keem Hykeem Jamaal Carter Jr. (born October 22, 2000), known professionally as Baby Keem, is an American rapper and record producer. He initially gained major recognition following the release of his single "Orange Soda", from his second mixtape ''Di ...

, HVN and

SoFaygo Andre Dontrel Burt Jr. (born October 3, 2001), known professionally as SoFaygo (formerly stylized as $oFaygo), is an American rapper and singer. In 2020, Burt released the ''Angelic 7'' mixtape, which was produced by friend and fellow rapper Lil ...

. ''Life of a DON'' was supported by two singles: " What You Need" and "Drugs n Hella Melodies". The album received generally positive reviews from music critics and was a commercial success. It debuted at number two on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart, earning 68,000

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditi ...

s in its first week.

Release and promotion

On February 2, 2021, Toliver cryptically announced ''Life of a DON'' via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. He had previously planned to release the album in July 2021. On September 28, 2021, he announced the release date of the album and revealed its cover art a few hours later. He also teased the opening track, "Xscape", in a trailer video of the album. To support the album, Toliver went on tour with American rapper Bia serving as a special guest. Toliver's

label boss, American rapper and singer Travis Scott, teased his excitement and involvement in the album in a tweet on April 9, 2021.

Singles

Two singles preceded the release of the album. The lead single, " What You Need", was released on May 4, 2021. The second single, "Drugs n Hella Melodies", featuring Toliver's girlfriend, Colombian-American singer

, was released on June 18, 2021. Both music videos were filmed in Colombia and released alongside the songs on their respective release dates.

Critical reception

''Life of a DON'' was met with generally positive reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 73, based on four reviews.

Commercial performance

''Life of a DON'' debuted at number two on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart, earning 68,000

s, (including 18,000 copies in pure album sales) in its first week. This became Toliver's second US top-ten debut on the chart and highest-charting album to date. The album also accumulated a total of 64.13 million on-demand streams from the album's songs.

Track listing

Notes * "Xscape", "Outerspace", and "Bogus" are stylized in

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Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{Don Toliver 2021 albums Don Toliver albums Atlantic Records albums Albums produced by Cardo (record producer) Albums produced by Hit-Boy Albums produced by DJ Dahi