Kendrick Lamar leaps from No. 9 to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated May 28), returning as the top musical act in the U.S. for a sixth total week, and for the first time since 2017, thanks to the opening week of his new LP, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.
The set soars in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 295,500 equivalent album units earned, according to Luminate – the biggest weekly total for an album this year. Lamar lands his fourth No. 1 on the chart, following 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly, 2016’s untitled unmastered. and 2017’s DAMN.
Lamar concurrently sends all 18 tracks from the new release onto the Billboard Hot 100, plus his non-album single “The Heart Part 5.” Of those 19 entries, four debut in the top 10: “N95” (No. 3); “Die Hard,” with Blxst and Amanda Reifer (No. 5); “Silent Hill,” with Kodak Black (No. 7); and “United In Grief” (No. 8). Lamar ups his career total to 12 top 10 hits on the chart.
With his sixth week at No. 1 on the Artist 100, Lamar passes Future for the third-longest reign among rappers, after Drake (36 weeks) and Post Malone (14).
Elsewhere on the Artist 100, K-pop group TOMORROW X TOGETHER re-enters at No. 3, a new peak, powered by its new EP Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child, which arrives at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 (69,000 units). Of that sum, 66,000 are from album sales, as the set debuts at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart, earning the group its third leader, after 2020’s Minisode1: Blue Hour and 2021’s The Chaos Chapter: Freeze.
Plus, Florence + The Machine re-enters the Artist 100 at No. 5, as its new album Dance Fever opens at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 (54,000 units), marking the group’s fourth top 10. It also bows at No. 1 on Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums.
The Artist 100 measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
