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PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake’s first collaborative album, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, debuts atop the Billboard 200 chart (dated March 1), earning 246,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 20, according to Luminate. It’s the first leader for PARTYNEXTDOOR and fourth top 10 charting set. It’s 14th No. 1 for Drake among 17 top 10s. Drake now ties JAY-Z and Taylor Swift for the most No. 1s among soloists in the nearly-69-year history of the chart. Overall, only The Beatles, with 19 No. 1s, have more.
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A collaborative project from PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake had been teased for months, but was only officially announced on Feb. 3, in advance of its release on Feb. 14.
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The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new March 1, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Feb. 25. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of $ome $exy $ongs 4 U’s 246,000 first-week equivalent album units, SEA units comprise 219,000 (equaling 287.04 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it debuts at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 25,000 (it debuts at No. 3 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 2,000.
With 287.04 million on-demand official streams generated of its songs, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U nets the largest streaming week for an album in 2025. It’s the largest streaming week for any album since Kendrick Lamar’s GNX debuted at No. 1 on the Dec. 7, 2024, chart with 379.72 million.
Speaking of Lamar, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U is Drake’s first album since the feud between him and Lamar escalated in March 2024 with the release of “Like That” by Future, Metro Boomin and Lamar. A flurry of diss tracks followed from each artist, with Lamar’s “Not Like Us” finding the most commercial success, spending three nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (including a return to the top a week ago after he performed the track during his Super Bowl LIX halftime show on Feb. 9).
$ome $exy $ongs 4 U replaces Lamar’s GNX atop the Billboard 200, as the latter falls to No. 3 after returning to No. 1 a week ago in the wake of the halftime show. It’s the first time Lamar and Drake have swapped the No. 1 slot on the Billboard 200. This is also only the third time Lamar and Drake have been in the top three at the same time on the Billboard 200. They previously shared space in the top three on the May 13, 2017, chart, when Lamar’s DAMN. was in its second week at No. 1 and Drake’s former leader More Life was No. 2, and on the May 6, 2017, chart, when DAMN. debuted at No. 1 and More Life was No. 3. (DAMN. spent four nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in May-August 2017 and More Life had three weeks at No. 1, consecutively, in April 2017.)
$ome $exy $ongs 4 U is the first collaborative No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2025. There were three collab No. 1s in 2024, none in 2023, one in 2022, one in 2021 and one in 2020. Of Drake’s 14 leaders, three are collaborative sets. He previously led with the collab projects Her Loss (with 21 Savage in 2022) and What a Time to Be Alive (with Future in 2015).
On the new Billboard 200 chart, Sabrina Carpenter’s former leader Short n’ Sweet surges 7-2 with 156,000 equivalent album units earned (up 208%) following its reissue with five additional tracks on Feb. 14. The set was reissued on streamers, as well as at retail as a digital download, CD, cassette and two vinyl variants. One of the additional cuts on the reissue is a reworked version of Carpenter’s solo No. 1 Hot 100 hit “Please Please Please,” now rerecorded as a collaboration featuring Dolly Parton.
With 156,000 equivalent album units earned in the latest tracking week, Short n’ Sweet snags its biggest week since it debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated Sept. 7, 2024, with 362,000. Of the album’s 156,000 units earned, SEA units comprise 83,000 (up 108%, equaling 111.95 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it climbs 7-4 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 71,000 (up 616%; it rises 6-1 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 2,000 (up 198%).
SZA’s chart-topping SOS falls 2-4 on the Billboard 200 with 93,000 equivalent album units earned (down 14%); Bad Bunny’s former No. 1 Debí Tirar Más Fotos dips 4-5 with 67,000 units (down 14%); and The Weeknd’s chart-topping Hurry Up Tomorrow descends 3-6 with 58,000 units (down 42%).
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess slips 5-7 on the Billboard 200 (49,000 equivalent album units earned; down 17%); Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft drops 6-8 (46,000; down 18%); Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time dips 8-9 (39,000; down 5%); and Lamar’s DAMN. falls 9-10 (33,000; down 14%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Tyler, the Creator lit up L.A. with his ‘Chromakopia: The World Tour’ concert, and we’re taking you inside the Tyler-filled night. From fans sharing their favorite tracks to singing songs from his discography, keep watching to experience the fun!
What’s your favorite track from Chromakopia? Let us know in the comments below!
Tyler, the Creator:
So can I do a song I’m probably only gonna do in California on the stage?
Tetris Kelly:
From Tyler himself to the fans that love him.
Fan 1:
‘Chromakopia,’ he’s real. He’s about that s—.
Tetris Kelly:
And everything crypto.com did to celebrate the icon. We’re taking you with us for a night with Tyler, the Creator in Billboard All Access. We arrived at the ‘Chromakopia: The World Tour’ at Crypto.com Arena and LA Live was lit up in green, and even had a statue of Tyler out front. And by the time we made it up to the VIP suite, there was a ‘Chromakopia’ drink that, yes, was green and also very strong. And you can expect a guy like Tyler to have merch with swag, and he delivered, and fans lined up all over the arena for the chance to take some home.
Fan 2:
We’re at the Chromakopia Tour. Got that ‘Chromakopia.’ He had to get the hat in both colors. He’s annoying, but they’re really cute.
Fan 3:
Big Tyler fans.
Fan 4:
Day one.
Fan 3:
I’ve known him since like ‘Cherry Bomb.’
Fan 5:
I really love the marching band inspiration, really big stadium energy.
Fan 6:
It’s such a good album. No skips on that album.
Fan 7:
The moment it came out, we were at the listening party. We got the Postmates grub.
Fan 3:
“Like Him” really finishes off the story about his dad. Listening to that song made me talk to my dad again.
Fan 1:
He came out with that “Hey Now” remix, that L.A. West Coast, like I’m about this s—. I’ve been here. I’ve been doing that.
Keep watching for more!
Rihanna is opening up about her family life and the next chapter of her music career.
In the cover story for Harper’s BAZAAR‘s March 2025 issue, published on Saturday (Feb. 22), the 37-year-old singer and entrepreneur shared her thoughts on a variety of personal topics, including the highly anticipated R9 album, raising her children with partner A$AP Rocky, her growing business empire, and more.
During the in-depth conversation, the Fenty mogul discussed the creative direction of her long-awaited new music and debunked rumors that it would be a reggae album.
“Way off! There’s no genre now. That’s why I waited,” Rihanna explains. “Every time, I was just like, ‘No, it’s not me. It’s not right. It’s not matching my growth. It’s not matching my evolution. I can’t do this. I can’t stand by this. I can’t perform this for a year on tour.’ After a while, I looked at it, and I was like, this much time away from music needs to count for the next thing everyone hears. It has to count. It has to matter. I have to show them the worth in the wait. I cannot put up anything mediocre. After waiting eight years, you might as well just wait some more.”
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She added, “When I’m in the studio, I know that my time away from my kids is to blossom something that hasn’t been watered in eight years. I’ve been in the studio the whole eight years. But it didn’t hit me. I was searching for it. I went through phases of what I wanted to do. ‘This kind of album, not that album.’ I know it’s not going to be anything that anybody expects. And it’s not going to be commercial or radio, digestible. It’s going to be where my artistry deserves to be right now. I feel like I’ve finally cracked it, girl!’”
Rihanna has not released an album since 2016’s Anti, which spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Since then, she’s released a handful of remixes and contributed to the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack with “Born Again” and “Lift Me Up.” The latter earned her a Grammy nomination for best song written for visual media, as well as an Oscar nomination for best original song.
“I listen to Anti from top to bottom with no shame,” Rihanna told the publication. “I used to always have shame. I actually don’t like listening to my music, but Anti — I can listen to the album. It’s not me singing it, if I’m just listening to it. That’s the one album that I can have an out-of-body experience where it’s not like … You know when you hear your voice in a voicemail, and it’s like, ‘Ugh.’”
The “Work” hitmaker also reflected on her role as a mother, raising her two young sons — RZA and Riot — with A$AP Rocky. The Harlem rapper, 36, was recently found not guilty on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm in Los Angeles.
“Every decision I make revolves around them, but everything that I do that I love robs me from them,” Ri says. “So I have a weird resentment with the things that I love. You almost feel like something is always suffering for you to show up somewhere. And even when you show up there, it’s not 100% because there’s something else on the wheel. It’s actually given me a lot more self-guilt.”
She also spoke lovingly about A$AP’s role as a father. “His pureness. His charm. I’m annoyed because my sons sometimes just live for him more than they live for me,” RiRi said. “And I’m like, ‘Did you know who cooked you? Do you know who pushed you out?’ And they love him, but when I see it, oh, it’s the best.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Rihanna emphasized the significance of her business empire, which includes Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty. “I care because my name is on it,” she said. “I don’t want my name to represent anything I don’t fully stand behind.”
Tyga is paying tribute to his mother, Pasionaye Nguye, who died on Jan. 18 at the age of 53. The rapper revealed the tragic loss with a heartfelt Instagram post on Friday (Feb. 21).
The “Rack City” rapper was close with his mother, whom he championed as the “best and most supportive” person in his life.
“I been trying to understand and process why God takes the most meaningful and most beautifulest people away from us,” he wrote. “But I know I’ll never get an answer that will fill the emptiness in my heart. Can’t imagine life without you by my side. You were the best and most supportive person in my life, you always made things better when I felt at my lowest and worst.”
Tyga continued by writing, “I would trade anything just to be able to be with you again I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. and I can’t wait for the day until we’re together again I’ll see you soon and save me a spot right next to you in paradise.”
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He concluded: “I Love you forever mom and I’ll do my best to celebrate you with every moment that I have left. Pasionaye Nicole Nguyen 9/11/71- 1/18/25 You took one of your best angels back GOD. I hope you know that.”
The sincere post to social media included a slideshow of photos featuring Tyga with his mother throughout his life, and one that appears to show her hand in a hospital bed.
Condolences and uplifting messages poured into his comment section from the music community, including notes from 2 Chainz, Pusha T, Sabrina Claudio, Big Sean, Jhené Aiko, Fat Joe, DDG, Casey Veggies and many more.
Amid the heartbreaking loss, Tyga released his first studio album since 2019 earlier in February with NSFW. The 17-track project featured assists from Lil Wayne, Shenseea, Big Sean, Flo Milli, Lil Tjay, Ty Dolla $ign and more.
Find Tyga’s post about his late mother below.
Almost a year later, there are still plenty of debates about the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle that shook up the rap landscape in 2024.
Adin Ross joined the Full Send Podcast earlier this week, and when the Drake-Kendrick Lamar feud was brought up, the popular streamer sided with the 6 God, as he believes the OVO boss won the battle.
Ross, who had Drake on his stream earlier this year, slammed Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show and gave Drizzy the win in their feud.
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“In my opinion, I think Drake won the rap battle because, obviously Kendrick made the hit song ‘Not Like Us,’ but it’s all lies. He said [Drake] had a daughter, which was debunked,” Ross said. “It wasn’t even real, but people don’t bring that up.”
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Ross continued to argue that “Drake put Kendrick” on in his career. “In 2011, I was 11 years old. It was called Would You Like a Tour? I believe,” he said. “It was when [Drake] first dropped Take Care, he took Kendrick, J. Cole, A$AP Rocky, The Weeknd — he took all these guys on tour. Gave them all a feature. French Montana, Meek Mill, all of them. He helped put them on and you’re doing him like this.”
The streamer thinks with Drake on top of the rap game for so long, other artists were eager to knock him off the throne.
“It’s all built up,” he added. “He’s been No. 1 for so long they just tried to knock him out. You can’t knock him out, though. He’s in Australia selling out crazy shows. … This guy just dropped an album, it’s amazing. No disrespect to Kendrick, he has classics, he has hits, [and] he is a legend, technically. But his last album before GNX, Mr. Morale, horrible. Drake revived Kendrick’s career.”
Many considered Lamar’s “Not Like Us” the kill shot in the battle against Drake, which debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 in May. Kendrick picked up another five Grammys and performed at the Super Bowl halftime show earlier this month. He’ll head out on the Grand National Tour with SZA starting in April.
As for Drake, he’s currently in Australia on the Anita Max Win Tour. He unleashed his $ome $exy $ongs 4 U joint project with PartyNextDoor on Valentine’s Day.
Watch the full interview below. Talk about Drake and Kendrick begins around the 10-minute mark.
Cardi B and DJ Khaled are part of the Smurf family. While they won’t be starring in the blockbuster, the “Wish Wish” collaborators joined forces on Friday (Feb. 21) to contribute “Higher Love” to the Smurfs Movie Soundtrack. “Higher Love” also features vocals from Desi Trill’s Natania and Subhi. The track samples Belinda Carlisle’s iconic […]
02/21/2025
With the New Orleans rapper making appearance on the new Ransom & Dave East tape, we take a look back at some of his best early songs.
02/21/2025
Voletta Wallace, mother to rap icon The Notorious B.I.G., is dead at 78. Billboard confirmed Wallace’s death with Monroe County Coroner’s Office in Pennsylvania on Friday (Feb. 21).
“Voletta has died, on hospice care, at her residence in Stroudsburg, Penn.,” Monroe County Coroner Thomas Yanac tells Billboard. “Voletta died of natural causes.”
TMZ was the first to report that Wallace had passed away.
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A Jamaican immigrant, Wallace gave birth to The Notorious B.I.G. (born Christopher Wallace) on May 21, 1972, in Brooklyn, where she worked as a preschool teacher and raised Biggie as a single mother.
He went on to reach superstar status in a short time as a rapper while signed to Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, where he released a pair of albums, Ready to Die and Life After Death, the latter of which debuted atop the Billboard 200 and arrived just weeks after he was gunned down in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997, at just 24 years old.
Much of the the Brooklyn rap icon’s catalog is etched in rap lore as one of the pillars of East Coast hip-hop during the ’90s “golden era,” including hits such as “Juicy,” “Hypnotize,” “Ten Crack Commandments,” “Going Back to Cali,” “Mo Money Mo Problems” and many more.
Wallace launched the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation in her son’s memory and did whatever she could to uphold his legacy and protect his estate while building on the foundation he laid prior to his passing in 1997. She also served as a producer on the Notorious biopic, which brought her son’s life story to the silver screen in 2009. She was portrayed by Angela Bassett in the film.
The Notorious B.I.G. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, and Voletta was present to accept the honor in her son’s place. “Today, I’m feeling great,” she told Billboard at the time. “As a mother, I’m extremely proud of his accomplishments. You know, I still see such a young man at a young age, and sadly, he’s not here to witness all this. But it’s an astute honor, and as a mother, I’m just elated for that.”
In recent months, Wallace’s Instagram account made posts celebrating her son’s rap achievements, which included 992 million Spotify streams in 2024 and eclipsing 2.5 billion all-time streams on Apple Music.
Voletta Wallace is survived by her grandchildren C.J. Wallace and T’yanna Wallace, who are Biggies kids.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” has soared to the top of the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart (Feb. 21).
The Drake diss track track, first released in May 2024, marks the Compton rapper’s maiden No. 1 hit in the U.K., thanks to exposure from his Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show earlier this month. His explosive performance has already become the most-watched halftime show in history, according to the NFL and Apple Music, surpassing 130 million viewers.
A recent U.K tour announcement with SZA has also continued to bolster Lamar’s current chart success. Two of the pair’s collabs, “Luther” and “All The Stars,” appear at No. 4 and No. 5 this week. He is also leading the pack in the U.S., too, as “Not Like Us” has returned to the summit of the BillboardHot 100 this week for the first time since last July.
Across an illustrious career, Lamar has notched up 11 top 10 singles in the U.K., from Taylor Swift team-up “Bad Blood” through to “Humble,” the lead single from his 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning LP Damn.
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Following acclaimed performances on late-night chat programs including The Graham Norton Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Lola Young’s “Messy” comes in at No. 2, breaking her four-week run atop the charts. The track appears on her studio album This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway, which was released in May 2024 via Island Records.
After taking to the stage at The BRIT Awards on March 1, Young will kick off her U.K. headlining tour the following week on March 3 at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town. In April, she will perform at Coachella, ahead of a stacked festival season including major events such as Manchester’s Parklife and Reading & Leeds.
There’s also further chart dominance incoming from Sabrina Carpenter. Having recently released a deluxe edition of last year’s Short n’ Sweet LP, its focus track “Busy Woman” comes in at 10, while “Please Please Please” re-enters the top 10 for the first time in four months thanks to a remix with Dolly Parton (No. 9).
Elsewhere, Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” shimmies on up to No. 3. Further down the chart, AJ Tracey and Jorja Smith’s buzzy new collab “Crush” debuts at No. 23, while Sam Fender’s “People Watching” hops up five places to No. 26, coinciding with the release of his album of the same name.
J. Cole is back with his first new song of 2025, and used the track to express some fears about AI.
Cole returned with the song “Clouds” via his Inevitable blog on Thursday (Feb. 20). While the Dreamville leader used the track to ruminate on multiple topics, he also used DZL and Omen’s lush beat to speak on the power of artificial intelligence.
“Don’t buy, subscribe so you can just stream your content/ Like rent, you won’t own a thing/ Before long, all the songs the whole world sings’ll be generated by latest of AI regimes/ As all of our favorite artists erased by it scream/ From the wayside, ‘Aye, whatever happened to human beings?’” Cole spits.
The North Carolina rapper didn’t clarify much in his blog post about “Clouds,” but did detail his motivation behind dropping new music.
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“Just wanted to share,” he wrote. “Made this a few days ago, then I added a second verse and was like, ‘Man I got a blog now, I can put whatever I want up there.’ I didn’t have a title 20 minutes ago when I decided to really put this up. But now I got one…”
Elsewhere in the song, Cole also spit some bars about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Philadelphia rally in June.
“I’m that bass in your trunk, the bullet that missed Trump/ The gun that jammed ’cause it seemed God had other plans,” Cole raps in the second verse.
The new track comes after J. Cole promised in a previous blog post he’d be more communicative with his fans.
“I knowwww mannnn. I’m off to a bad start with the consistency, but I’ma do better! Watch,” he wrote in part. “I been locked in on the music while also balancing family life. It’s a juggling act that a blog post wouldn’t do justice in explaining. But with that said, I’m back tending to this garden.”
“Clouds” is Cole’s first new song to emerge since he dropped the YouTube loosie “Port Antonio” last October. On the latter track, Cole addressed his divisive decision to apologize for dissing Kendrick Lamar and step away from a brewing rap battle with the GNX rapper.
Listen to “Clouds” here.
