Drake's "Solar Eclipse" Is the "Choosin' Texas" Remix. Here's Who's Actually Credited
The song fans spent weeks calling Drake's "Choosin' Texas" remix is on streaming now, with a new title, a long writer list, and one viral claim about money that nobody involved has confirmed.
If you searched "Solar Eclipse Drake" this week, you probably wanted one answer: is this the "Choosin' Texas" song? Yes. "Solar Eclipse," Drake's track with Don Toliver, interpolates Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas," the country single that has spent a record 24 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It arrived October 2 on HABIBTI (FOMO), the deluxe edition of Drake's May album HABIBTI.
The release is the easy part. The credits are where the story is.
How "Choosin' Texas" turned into "Solar Eclipse"
This didn't happen overnight. In July, Drake played "Choosin' Texas" while DJing at a Houston nightclub. Langley answered on TikTok by lip-syncing his Lil Wayne collab "HYFR," the one with the George Strait line, and Drake showed up in her comments with two words: "Goated Pen." In August he was at her show in Little Rock, Arkansas, when she performed the song. About a week later, on August 30, he played "Solar Eclipse" during a DJ set in Toronto, according to Billboard Canada.
The full version surfaced in mid-September inside FOMO, Drake's short film, with backstage footage of him and Langley. Then the film was re-uploaded and that footage was gone. Drake never explained the edit, and we couldn't find any public comment on the remix from Langley or her label, so fans spent weeks guessing whether it would ever reach streaming.
It did. Days before the drop, Drake told fans on a Kick stream that "a bunch of songs" were coming on Thursday: "Well, not all of them. Enough of them." Four FOMO tracks landed as HABIBTI (FOMO): "Solar Eclipse" featuring Don Toliver, "Quebec," "Cold Shoulder" featuring Don Toliver and Yebba, and "Classic PT2."
Update (Oct 7, 2026): Both Don Toliver collaborations now have official videos. DrakeVEVO uploaded "Solar Eclipse" and "Cold Shoulder", with Yebba, on October 6.
Is Ella Langley on "Solar Eclipse"?
Not as a performer. The finished song doesn't list her as a featured artist. Her name is in the writing credits instead, alongside the other writers of "Choosin' Texas": Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, and Joybeth Taylor.
That's what an interpolation does. Drake didn't lift Langley's recording. He and Toliver re-sing and rework parts of her song, so the people who wrote that song get songwriting credit on the new one. Pitchfork hears it as a "lounge-trap slow burn" and points to Drake flipping the original's "A cowboy always finds a way to leave" into "A cowgirl ends up riding off on me."
The production credit is short. Noel Cadastre is listed as the only producer.
The second sample most people missed
This is the part that matters if you're doing the math. "Solar Eclipse" isn't only built on a country song. According to JustJared and WhoSampled, it also samples Bun B's "Get Throwed," the 2005 Houston posse cut from Bun's album Trill with Pimp C, Z-Ro, Jeezy, and Jay-Z. WhoSampled logs it as a direct sample that shows up around the 2:07 mark and runs through the song. The original beat came from Houston producer Mr. Lee.
JustJared says that's why the writer list runs so long. It isn't Drake's first trip to that well either: XMG Hip Hop notes he built "N 2 Deep" with Future on Certified Lover Boy from the same record in 2021.
It also fits the song. Drake fills his verse with Texas place names, from River Oaks and Sugar Land to The Woodlands and Katy, plus a Johnny Manziel reference, and Toliver, who's from the Houston area, carries that energy into his part. So one track carries a Toronto rapper, a Houston singer, a country chart record, and a Houston rap classic.
Did Drake really give up his publishing?
This is the claim that traveled. According to DJ Akademiks, via Billboard Canada, Drake gave up his publishing share on "Solar Eclipse" so the song could be cleared and released. Akademiks said on a Kick livestream: "Apparently, all the publishing actually goes to the women on the song, so, I believe the producer and Ella. So, Drake doesn't even make any money off of this."
Read that for what it is: a secondhand claim from a streamer Holler describes as one of Drake's closest media allies. Drake hasn't confirmed it. Neither has OVO, Langley, her label, or any publisher. Even Holler, the country outlet that wrote a whole piece on why the move would be a big deal, framed it with "If Akademiks is correct" and allowed that he might be mistaken.
A few details are worth keeping next to that quote. Akademiks hedges in his own words ("Apparently," "I believe"), and in a clip quoted by HotNewHipHop he describes it as "a portion or would be portion of the publishing." And the published credits include the "Get Throwed" writers as well as Langley's team. So even if Drake did waive his own share, the song's writing credit on record isn't Langley's alone. How the splits actually break down hasn't been made public.
Who gets paid, in plain terms
There are two kinds of money here, and the internet keeps mashing them together.
Publishing is the songwriting side. It follows the credited writers. Because "Solar Eclipse" interpolates "Choosin' Texas," its writers are on the new song. Because it samples "Get Throwed," that record's writers are too.
The master is the recording. A sample needs permission on both sides, the recording and the composition. An interpolation like the "Choosin' Texas" part doesn't use Langley's recording, so it's a songwriting credit, not a master deal.
That's why "Drake doesn't make any money off this" is too neat even if the waiver is real. Giving up a writer's share is not the same thing as giving up every stream of income attached to a song.
For a sense of the stakes, Billboard has put "Choosin' Texas" at $13.9 million in U.S. revenue from streams, sales, and airplay so far. Early reports via HotNewHipHop say "Solar Eclipse" did about 3.3 million Spotify streams in its first full day, the most of the four new tracks. If you want the long version of how credits and numbers work, we've broken down who actually makes a song and how to read a song's numbers.
Why this one is worth watching
"Choosin' Texas" is still chasing records. In Canada it just tied Alex Warren's "Ordinary" at 21 weeks at No. 1, four weeks from tying Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" for the all-time mark. Meanwhile Drake has a song built on it that, if Akademiks is right, he isn't cutting himself a check for.
What's confirmed is simpler and still interesting: a rap song with two famous foundations, a country one and a Houston one, and a writer list that tells you more about the record than the feature tag does. The money claim stays a claim until someone with the paperwork says otherwise.
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