Megan Thee Stallion has introduced rap again to the US high 40 following a two-week absence, which marked the primary time the style hadn’t featured on the chart since 1990.
Final month, an replace for the Billboard Sizzling 100 noticed Kendrick Lamar and SZA‘s hit single ‘Luther’ fall into recurrent standing because of rule adjustments in how songs are deemed eligible for the chart.
The 2024 collaborative monitor was faraway from the run-down after 46 weeks, throughout which the track spent 13 weeks at Quantity One. ‘Luther’ was nonetheless a high 40 hit on the time, touchdown at Quantity 38 in its closing week.
Its departure meant that there have been no singles from the world of hip-hop and rap within the Billboard Sizzling 100’s high 40 for the primary time in 35 years.
Nevertheless, the newest replace (for the week of Saturday November 8) has seen rap return, after being lacking fully from the earlier two charts (October 25 and November 1).
That is due to Megan Thee Stallion’s newest single, ‘Lover Lady’. Launched on October 24, the monitor has debuted at Quantity 38 on the Sizzling 100.
‘Lover Lady’ racked up 8.5million official streams within the US, 1.5million in radio airplay viewers, and 5,000 copies bought within the week ending October 30, based on information analytics firm Luminate.
The track marks Megan’s twenty first launch to achieve the Sizzling 100’s high 40. Nevertheless, as Billboard notes, ‘Lover Lady’ is more likely to drop on the subsequent Sizzling 100 replace. There are not any rap songs at the moment behind it on the chart that would race as much as take its place.
The following two highest-charting rap songs on the Sizzling 100 have each dropped from their place on the earlier replace. YoungBoy By no means Broke Once more’s ‘Shot Callin’ is down from Quantity 43 to Quantity 48, with BigXthaPlug and Ella Langley’s ‘Hell At Evening’ falling from Quantity 50 to Quantity 52.
However additional down the chart, Gunna’s ‘WGFT’ (that includes Burna Boy) has risen from Quantity 59 to Quantity 55. Cardi B and Kehlani’s ‘Protected’ has jumped one place, too (from Quantity 57 to Quantity 56).
Songs which were on the Billboard Sizzling 100 for prolonged durations of time and likewise fall under a sure chart place will now be deemed “recurrent” and faraway from the highest 40, per the rule change.
‘Lover Lady’ follows on from Megan Thee Stallion’s different 2025 single ‘No matter’, which was launched in April. The monitor arrived on the heels of the rapper’s performances at this 12 months’s Coachella. Each songs are anticipated to characteristic on her subsequent album, ‘Megan: Act III’.
In a glowing, five-star overview of final 12 months’s ‘Megan: Act II’, NME wrote: “Megan confirms why she’s “the baddest bitch out proper now” as soon as once more. Regardless of all of the adversity that has plagued her lately, she firmly stands atop the rap world because the princess of rap, gazing down from her pedestal whereas sharpening her tiara – perhaps there’s a coronation on the horizon very quickly.”
