Drake plays Fortnite and pulls Twitch's biggest audience

Rapper Drake at the Billboard Music Awards in May last year. — AFP Relaxnews

Canadian hip-hop artist Drake hopped onto a live video game stream with Twitch TV channel host Ninja, and together the pair generated record audience numbers.

Twitch TV's most popular streamer, Tyler Blevins (aka Ninja) teamed up with Aubrey Drake Graham – Canadian hip-hop artist and producer Drake – and in the process set a new record for simultaneous views.

The pair and their pals were playing Fortnite: Battle Royale, a free last-person-standing game, with Drake on PlayStation 4 and Ninja on PC.

Ex-eSports pro Ninja has six years on the clock as a streamer, specialising in first-person shooters and starting with games in the Halo franchise before transitioning to H1Z1, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and now Fortnite: Battle Royale.

Though the stream did not reach 1 million views after Drake let fans know about it through Twitter, it did pass a live viewership of 600,000, making it Twitch's most-watched live broadcast to date.

Watch Squads with Drake, Travis and JuJu you heard me. | @Ninja on Twitter and Instagram from Ninja on www.twitch.tv

The record was previously held by Guy Beahm, aka DrDisRespect, who reached a live audience of 388,000 after returning from a two-month hiatus in February 2018.

The previous month, League Of Legends player Tyler1 had amassed an audience of 386,000 when he was let back into that particular game after a two-year ban. — AFP Relaxnews