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In April, rising pop singer-songwriter Chappell Roan released “Good Luck, Babe!”, a sleek, synthy single with nonchalant verses and an emphatically dismissive chorus. Her album Midwest Princess had failed to crack the Billboard 200 when it came out the year before, but “Good Luck, Babe!” immediately showed signs of commercial promise, handily out-streaming previous tracks. It chugged onto the Billboard Hot 100, starting at No. 77, and eleven weeks later, with some coaxing, made it all the way to the top 10.
A version of this path used to be commonplace: It took time, usually months, to propel a single into the top 10. Today, however, it’s hard to find a trajectory like Chappell Roan’s; as of the third week of July, 75% of this year’s top 10 hits have debuted in the top 10. Launching a single has become more like launching a new album, or even a new movie — focus on pre-release marketing, live and die by first-week results. 

Trending on Billboard

This has its advantages. Because so much of pre-release marketing involves teasing songs on social media, artists and labels often know how the public feels about a track before it comes out, so they can spend promotional dollars more efficiently. And unlike movies, songs are relatively cheap to make, so if teasing one fails to arouse interest, an artist can cut bait quickly, or even trash a track and not bother to put it out.

“The industry used to front-load any strategy before they had the confidence that it’s working,” says Nick Bobetsky, who manages Chappell Roan. “You don’t have to do that now.”

But there’s a potential downside, too. Executives say that many artists and labels are often unwilling, or unable, to execute the sort of monthslong campaigns that create hits over time — think Latto’s “Big Energy,” Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” or Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season,” which all took more than 20 weeks to climb the chart and peak in the top 10.

“If you don’t have a song react immediately, if it doesn’t stream an extraordinary amount right away, everyone’s like, ‘It’s not working,’” says J Grand, a former major label A&R who owns the label 88 Classic. “In the same way we need to be patient building artists, we’ve got to be patient with songs we really believe in.”

Twenty-five years ago, it was nearly impossible for a song to explode off the starting line and debut in the Hot 100’s top 10. Chart position was determined by airplay, which usually grew as radio stations took time to gauge the success of a song in their market, and single sales, which often rose in conjunction with airplay and TV appearances and the release of a music video.

Back in 2000, an average top 10 hit took 11.6 weeks — nearly three months — to reach its peak. “Both the flow of information was slow and purchasing was slow,” says Glenn McDonald, a former Spotify employee and the author of You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favorite Song: How Streaming Changes Music. “It took a while for anybody to know that a thing was happening, and then it’d be a while before they worked up the enthusiasm to actually go to a record store and buy whatever it was.” 

Now, of course, social media ensures that news travels instantly, and the widespread adoption of streaming means that new music is just a click or two away. But an eight- or nine-week climb up the chart was routine until around 2018. 

Planning, funding and executing that climb was the chief function of the record labels. “Back then, it was really governed by whether you went to radio, whether you were on TV, whether you had a big press story, or even whether your release was available at a store for people to buy,” says John Fleckenstein, COO at RCA Records. 

Labels still have these tools at their disposal — RCA took Latto’s “Big Energy” to radio earlier than expected, according to Fleckenstein, after seeing listeners “were skewing a little older than they had on Latto’s previous releases.” “We don’t feel that growing records is a lost art,” he adds. Radio tends to play a crucial role in this process because stations typically add songs, and then play them more frequently, as they see them build, rather than immediately throwing a single into heavy rotation.

But radio doesn’t drive as much music discovery as it used to, especially for young people, and TV viewership is way down; on top of that, driving listeners to a song is considerably harder in a climate where they have seemingly infinite choice.

So the marketing process starts earlier, usually weeks before a track is released, and sometimes before the track is even finished. “You try to get people’s anticipation up for that song to come out,” Fleckenstein says. Otherwise, it’s just another track adrift in “a sea of content.”

The biggest stars seem to generate anticipation simply by existing. And since multimetric charts incorporate streams, acts like Taylor Swift or Drake routinely enjoy multiple top 10 debuts on the Hot 100 whenever they release a new full-length; Swift has single-handedly occupied the whole top 10. (Before streaming, there was no way of measuring on-demand listening after the purchase of an album, constraining the amount of songs likely to appear on the Hot 100, particularly simultaneously.)

Lesser known acts typically build excitement by previewing a track on short-form video platforms and encouraging fans to pre-save it, so they’ll listen the instant it arrives. The Swedish singer Benjamin Ingrosso shared snippets of “Look Who’s Laughing Now” 32 times across TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts over five weeks before releasing the track in June. “The entire intention was to collect pre-saves,” says Tim Collins, the singer’s manager. “The whole f–king country knew the song before it came out,” the single’s release date was moved up because fans were clamoring for it on TikTok, and it debuted at No. 1 on the Sweden Songs chart.

In the old regime, labels would pick singles ahead of time and spend lavishly to support those tracks, but they were flying blind, with no indication of how listeners felt about the song. Now that’s unnecessary. “If you throw up a brick, you’re probably not going to get the marketing that you want for your project,” Grand says. 

“Every song has to prove itself,” Bobetsky adds. “And with every new phase, the artist, in a lot of ways, has to re-prove themselves.” This can be mentally taxing — an artist’s position is never safe — and cruelly Darwinian. 

This landscape may also foster a fickle approach to promotion. “Artists who have had a viral moment and leaned into it can be afraid to work other songs that don’t instantly go viral,” says Ethan Curtis, founder and CEO of PushPlay, a management company and marketing agency. 

“They think, ‘It didn’t have the sauce, it’s not that good,'” he explains. But “you might hit a nerve [on TikTok] because there’s a certain topic that’s trending that day, and if you posted that video yesterday, it wouldn’t have gone.”

Persistence paid off for one of Curtis’ management clients, the singer JVKE, whose song “Golden Hour” took 22 weeks to peak in the top 10 early in 2023. “A handful” of initial posts with the track sank like a stone, according to Curtis. Some teams might have moved on. 

But then JVKE generated excitement on TikTok with a clip where he played the song for his childhood piano teacher. After a few more videos in this vein, interest on the app started flagging, so JVKE’s team encouraged other pianists to post their own clips playing the song “to showcase their chops.” 

They made more than two dozen remixes of the single as well – picking collaborators that would expand the song’s geographical reach – then booked JVKE an appearance on The Tonight Show, and paid to push the track to radio. Later, they created their own TikTok fan pages to “repurpose and repost all the content we and others had made,” Curtis says, which “extend[ed] the momentum just long enough to break into the top 10.”

Would other singles benefit from the same sort of patient, sustained, multi-prong push over several months? “I don’t think you should ever give up on a song,” Bobetsky says. Still, he allows, “If you do justice to the song’s promotion and exposure, and it’s not sticky, then trying to keep amplifying it is pretending that we know better than the public.” 

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Source: Prince Williams / Getty
DJ Mustard might be in his feelings. He referred to Drake as “The Malcolm X Of White People” when discussing his recent album’s lackluster performance.

As spotted on XXL Magazine the Los Angeles, California native recently released his fourth album Faith of a Mustard Seed. Even though he collaborated with the likes of Lil Yachty, Quavo, Lil Durk and Future the project only sold 18,000 units during the first week. Given his history for producing hits for others many deemed this new effort as a commercial failure and made their feelings known directly to him on X, formerly Twitter. It seems some of the criticism got to him as he dismissed the record sales metric writing “Album sales are a form of [White] supremacy you ni**as racist.”

One fan responded “It’s only racist when your album flops. If your album sold well you’d be flexing your sales” and that’s when he went on a brief rant alleging Drake had a hand negatively impacting his album. “Drake is the Malcolm x of white people and @Akademiks make sure you post @GordoSZN first week since drake thought he did a thing with making him drop on the same day as me” he wrote. This is a reference to the rumor Drake suggested that Gordo drop his album DIAMANTE, that has two features from Drizzy, on the same day as Faith of a Mustard Seed. It seems the slander quickly escalated as he soon insinuated that bots were flooding his timeline. “These drake bots are the Nation of drizzlam” and “THE BOTS TRYNA FADE ME.” 
DJ Mustard produced the beat for Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”. Since then he has been involved in the Rap beef by default. You can see his posts below.

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Source: Theo Wargo / Getty
Drake may be done going back and forth with Kendrick Lamar, but it seems like A$AP Rocky isn’t letting the King of the North off the hook that easily for speaking sideways about his queen, Rihanna.

Months after A$AP Rocky took a subliminal shot at Drake on Kid Cudi’s “WOW,” the Harlem rapper is at it again as he throws another indirect dart at the Canadian crooner for his transgressions on his 2023 song, “Fear Of Heights.” In a newly released cut dubbed, “HIJACK,” Rocky seems to continue to rub his relationship with Rihanna in his ops’ face with some bars saying, “These n*ggas want my wife bad, the people want my next track.”

While people may make of that what they want, Hot 97’s DJ Kast One recently attended a listening event for A$AP Rocky’s next album, Don’t Be Dumb, and according to HipHopDX, Pretty Flacko got a little something for Drizzy in the chamber ready to go.
Per HipHopDX:
After attending a listening event for the album, Kast One said on air: “I heard A$AP Rocky definitely addressing a lot of the main topics that are happening out there right now. Let’s just say the list keeps going on strong.”
Host Ebro Darden then asked whether “Rocky is still on Drake’s list,” with the DJ responding: “Oh, he’s gonna be cemented on the list after this.”
Whether Rocky’s shots at Drake are more subliminal bars or direct darts at the embattled Canadian king remains to be seen, but one has to wonder if Drake would even entertain another battle so soon after getting beaten, battered and bruised by the likes of Kung-Fu Kenny.
Check out “HIJACK” below, and let us know if A$AP Rocky vs. Drake is a battle you’d like to see, or if the two men should just let things go and move on with their lives.

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Drake has continued to release music in the wake of his on-wax battle with Kendrick Lamar as a guest performer, leaning more into his melodic side. Drake will reportedly make a return to the rapping portion of his sound with a rumored project with producer Conductor Williams said to be released later this year.
The news of the upcoming Drake and Conductor Wiliams project was first heard during a broadcast of Hot 97’s Ebro In The Morning. Main host Ebro Darden addressed the rumor of an album coming from the Canadian superstar with co-host Laura Stylez adding to the chatter.

“Drake is dropping a project at some point this year. That’s the rumor,” Darden said on Wednesday (July 31). Stylez added, “I heard that it’s coming sooner than we think.”
Fellow co-host Peter Rosenberg, who is as knowledgeable about the culture as anyone in his profession, chimed in with, “I also heard he has a whole project’s worth of music done with Conductor Williams which is very Hip-Hoppy.”
Conductor Williams is a name familiar to many in the underground and has produced bodies of work with fellow Kansas native Stik Figa. Williams has also connected with the sprawling Griselda Records camp and produced work for its mainstay acts, Conway The Machine and Westside Gunn, along with works with Boldy James, Mach-Hommy, and more.
Williams also produced the now-deleted J. Cole track “7 Minute Drill” which was aimed toward Kendrick Lamar before the North Carolina star backtracked the jab.
Williams produced two tracks on Drake’s For All The Dogs: Scary Hours Edition deluxe drop, “8am In Charlotte” and “Stories About My Brother.”
The news has not been confirmed by the OVO Sound camp as of yet.

Photo: Getty

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Source: Carmen Mandato / Getty / Drake
Drake found out that not everyone loves him the 6.
Could this be the after-effects of his battle and loss to Kendrick Lamar?
Spotted on TMZ Hip Hop, Drizzy did not get a hometown greeting by locals attending a Limp Bizkit concert in his hometown of Toronto.
The proud Canadian was showered with boos when Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst announced to the crowd that the OVO General was in the building.

Per TMZ Hip Hop:

Limp Bizkit was performing in Toronto Thursday night — prodding their local audience with the mere mention of Drizzy’s name as a guest in attendance … and it didn’t get over well at all, as the crowd booed the hell of him.
The video never shows Drake appear onstage … but they definitely weren’t happy to hear he was in the building — which left Fred Durst absolutely speechless.
He questioned the hate, saying … “I thought Drake was your homie? What? No? Drake’s my homie.”
The celebrity gossip site reports the boos got even more aggressive, and f-bombs could be heard as Durst continued talking about Drake before going into his next song, “Take a Look Around,” which he dedicated to the 6 God.

To his credit, Drake has been taking his L in stride.
He is still showing up places, dropping new music, and posting on social media at his regular rate.
So if he’s hurting on the inside, he isn’t showing it at all, but we would have to imagine being booed in your hometown stings a lot.
Welp.
We are sure Kendrick Lamar is somewhere laughing at Drake’s current misfortunes.
At least Drake can count on DJ Akademiks to be on his side when it’s all said and done.

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Source: Emma McIntyre / Getty
It appears that Twitch is the new mixtape leak. Kai Cenat recently previewed a new track from Drake and Lil Yachty.

As reported on Hypebeast, the New York City native broke the internet once again. On Wednesday, July 24, the popular online personality took to Twitch and premiered a new track from Drake and Lil Yachty. Now referred to as “Super Soak,” the selection finds both MCs floating nicely on a slow-pitched beat, which samples Mr. Hotspot’s “Goodness Gracious.” Drizzy opens the cut with his signature approach of blending singing and rapping together. “I’m watching the moves, I’m playing it close / S.O.D., Super Soak / Rainy days, his and hers, matching coat / Jet is so big, it feel like a boat, staying afloat / I’m watching the moves, I’m playing it close,” he raps.

Lil Yachty follows Drake after the chorus with some moody bars on the second verse. “Twenty times Bottega, you can get what you want / Twenty times Balenci’, you could have it all / I don’t ask no questions ’bout who else involved / Get rid of your troubles (Phew), problem solved.” As expected, Kai Cenat turned up while the song played and proceeded to cut a rug from the comfort of his bedroom. Earlier this week, Adin Ross teased a song called “Promotion” that features Ye, Ty Dolla $ign and Future.
You can see the preview to the Drake and Lil Yachty track below.

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Source: Carmen Mandato / Getty / Drake
Drake can’t catch a break.
Drizzy’s city of Toronto is experiencing torrential rain, which is causing severe flooding and power outages.
Drake took to Instagram to reveal that his luxurious crib isn’t safe from the flood waters. He shared a video via his IG Stories showing dirty, yellowish water flooding into it, with the caption, “This better be Espresso Martini.”

Drake didn’t follow up with any updates, but his post did open the floodgates for folks on X, formerly Twitter, to use the moment to add salt to Drake’s still-fresh wound following his rap battle and defeat at the hands of Kendrick Lamar.
Many people joked that it was Lamar who was the cause of Drake’s weather-related issues he was enduring.
“Kendrick brought the biblical flood to Drake,” one post read.
Another user on X wrote, “First it was the diss records, the concert and the video. Now it’s a flood… Next, Kendrick is about to send the locusts to The Embassy…”

Wh” Is DrakeDrake’sA** Crib Not On A Hill?
Others wondered why DrakeDrake’s was not elevated in the first place, with one person writing, “I’m still shocked that Drake’s house isn’t on top of the highest hill in Toronto. That man has no sense.”
No matter what Drake does, he can’t escape Kung-Fu Kenny’s wrath.
Just recently, Richard Branson, a Black video game developer, dropped a free web video game based on Lama’s scathing-smash hit diss record “Not Like Us.”
In the game, control a pixel sprite version of K.Dot and literally wop wop wop as many owls as they can with a bat.

Damn, Drake.
You can see more reactions to Drake’s mansion flooding and K.Dot using his biblical powers to make it happen in the gallery below.

3. Howling

4. Good question

7. Ha ha ha ha ha

8. Nobody is safe

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Source: Richie Branson / Not Like Us
Are you sick of hearing “Not Like Us?”  Well, that’s too damn bad because it just got more legs, thanks to a video game.
Thanks to a black video game designer, Kendrick Lamar’s infectious Drake diss will continue to be the topic of conversations, much to the ire of Champagne Papi.
On Monday, Richie Branson, who describes himself as “just a random brotha who designed games for Bleacher Report and worked for Epic Games as a game designer on a little game called Fortnite,” dropped a free game that turns the moment K.Dot wacks an owl pinata from the song’s visual into a fun video game.
In the web game, players take control of a pixel sprite version of the West Coast rapper and wop wop wop as many owls as they can with a bat.

Branson calls the game a “free love letter to video games and hip-hop,” adding, “I intentionally made the game spike in difficulty above 17, so any score 18 and above should be celebrated.”

This Diss Record Won’t Go Away
To rub more salt in Drake’s still open wound, the song featuring DJ Mustrard’s production is back in the Billboard Hot 100 this week after debuting at No. 1 in May.
Lamar is still riding the high from his “Pop Out” concert, which many have already dubbed one of Hip-Hop’s most culturally significant moments.
Meanwhile, Drake continues to post cryptic messages on Instagram, trying to give his fans and us the impression that he’s fine, but clearly, we think the brother is a bit scarred from his battle with Kendrick Lamar.

Drake, it’s okay to admit you are in the dumps now. It’s a sign of strength, not weakness.
If you want to try the game, you can head here.

2. Another one

3. Well deserved

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Source: Todd Korol / Getty
There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to the “Not Like Us” wave. DeMar DeRozan has explained his cameo in the video.

As reported by Hype Beast the Sacramento Kings shooting guard recently paid a visit to Fox 40. During his conversation with Sean Cunningham he discussed joining the team after being traded from the Toronto Raptors. He made it clear that he is here to win. “I want to be one of those guys that hits the beam,” he said. “I will work my butt off more than ever to make sure the city gets what it deserves. I just want to win at the highest levels.”

While the focus of the interview was his future with the team he did speak to why he briefly appeared in the “Not Like Us” video. “Kendrick been a friend of mine, family — damn near family, for a long time, for a while. We’re from the same city, we grew up damn near in the same neighborhood,” DeRozan said. “So it’s always been there. It hasn’t always been publicized, but, you know, that’s basically family.” Even though he seemingly has a strong bond with K Dot he says Drake’s music will still airplay at the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center. “We love Drake. We love Drake. We can always play him” he said.
You can watch DeMar Derozan’s interview below.
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Source: @michaelrubin / Instagram
Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin’s annual all-white party in the Hamptons on July 4th has become the premiere destination if you consider yourself to be a mover and shaker in the sports and entertainment industries. 2024’s basement was packed with celebs who made the guestlist, including Drake.

We’re not kicking the 6 God when he’s down, but we have to mention that Drizzy was at the party when Kendrick Lamar premiered his video for “Not Like Us,” so thus, the jokes are going to write themselves.
As for the party, some the A-listers, B-listers and current Instagram celebs in attendance included Tom Brady, Quavo, Megan Thee Stallion, Kanye West’s ex-wife, Glorilla, Lil Wayne, Jake Paul, Travis Scott, Lil Baby and Druski, among many, many others.
Another thing worth noting is Drake and Megan Thee Stallion being there considering the former well-documented support of the short-statured R&B singer/rapper who shot her in the foot. Also, Drake apparently performed (as did Lil Wayne, too). Now how many people there been siding with Kendrick, at least on the low, though?

Check out who else was at the party, and the jokes aimed at Drizzy’s dome, in the gallery.

1. This also happened…