Silk Sonic reasserts its might on Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart as the duo’s “After Last Night,” with Thundercat and funk legend Bootsy Collins, ascends to No. 1 on the list dated Nov. 19. The coronation gives the pair, comprised of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, their fourth champ from their first five singles.
“After Last Night” rises from No. 3 after a 12% gain in weekly plays that made the single the most-played song on U.S. monitored adult R&B radio stations in the week ending Nov. 13, according to Luminate. The track evicts Tank’s “Slow,” featuring J. Valentine, after its two weeks on top.
As noted, the new champ is the fourth No. 1 for Silk Sonic out of five singles since the duo’s first release in early 2021. The pair first reigned on Adult R&B Airplay with debut effort “Leave the Door Open” for 13 weeks in April – June 2021, returned to the summit with third single “Smokin out the Window” for one week in January 2022, and ran up another 13-week stay on top for fourth release “Love’s Train” in April – July of this year. Of their first five singles, the only one to miss the top slot was the second, “Skate,” which peaked at No. 4 in October 2021.
Four of the five tracks, sans “Love’s Train,” all originally appeared on Silk Sonic’s An Evening With Silk Sonic album upon its release in November 2021 (“Train,” released in February 2022, was added to the album’s digital and streaming versions.) An Evening With Silk Sonic debuted at No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top R&B Albums charts, leading the former for one week and the latter for two terms.
With all four No. 1s now on the album, An Evening With Silk Sonic is only the second album to generate four Adult R&B Airplay No. 1s. Toni Braxton’s self-titled 1993 LP was the first, thanks to the chart-topping runs of “Another Sad Love Song,” “Breathe Again,” “Seven Whole Days” and “You Mean the World to Me” between September 1993 and March 1994.
As Silk Sonic also contributes to Mars and Anderson .Paak’s individual chart accounts, “After Last Night” gives Mars his eighth career No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay, while Anderson .Paak notches his fourth. Thundercat claims his first champ on the list with his first entry, while Bootsy Collins earns his first leader with his second appearance on the 29-year-old list, after “Don’t Take My Funk” featuring Catfish Collins and Bobby Womack, stopped at No. 32 in 2011.
Elsewhere, “After Last Night” rides its adult R&B momentum to push 19-16 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, which measures songs by audience listenership from both adult R&B and mainstream R&B/hip-hop stations. There, the song improves 6% to 7.5 million in audience in the week ending Nov. 13. The rebound brings the song within two places of its No. 14 peak thus far, achieved four weeks ago.
