“Honestly, Nevermind,” Drake’s seventh proper studio LP, was released to streaming services at midnight on Friday, having been officially announced only hours earlier on Drake’s social media accounts. With 14 tracks, it is a relatively short collection for the superstar rapper-singer. (“Certified Lover Boy,” which came out last September, had 21 songs.)

The new album’s producers include longtime collaborators like Noah Shebib (known as 40), Oliver El-Khatib (who is also one of Drake’s managers) and Noel Cadastre, as well as Black Coffee, a South African D.J. who came up through the underground and in recent years has worked with stars like David Guetta and Usher.

In a note attached to the album on Apple Music, Drake said that “Honestly, Nevermind” was dedicated to Virgil Abloh, the influential fashion designer who had a long association with Kanye West, and died last year at age 41 from cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare kind of cancer.

Fans had been expecting something new from Drake since at least March, when he posted a picture of himself in a recording studio. On the contrary, “Certified Lover Boy” had been bruitedabout for nearly a year. Drake’s announcement for “Honestly, Nevermind” came just hours after Beyoncé — the undisputed champion of surprise album releases — made her own statement, uncharacteristically giving a six-week heads up for her next release, “Renaissance,” which will be her first solo studio album since “Lemonade” in 2016.