Drake Stays Number One as Nav, Kehlani Rise on Artists 500
held on to the Number One spot on the Rolling Stone Artists 500 chart, though the Top 10 featured a handful of notable shake ups for the week of May 8th through May 14th.
Drake pulled in 160.9 million song streams thanks to the continued success of his new surprise mixtape, Dark Lane Demo Tapes. But despite those characteristically healthy overall streaming totals, Dark Lane dropped from Number Two on the Top 200 Albums chart — where it debuted last week, just missing out on Number One thanks to country star Kenny Chesney — to Number Three, picking up 91.2 million streams and moving 77,400 album-equivalent units.
While Chesney fell out of the upper echelons of the Top 200 after his big debut week, Drake was unable to take the Number One spot there thanks to new records from and . Nav’s latest LP, Good Intentions, landed at Number One as it moved 151,200 album units thanks to 75.3 million song streams and 75,100 album sales — though on the Artists 500, Nav only managed to land at Number Seven as he pulled in 76.2 million streams. One spot ahead of him, at Number Six, was Kehlani, who pulled in 76.8 million song streams thanks to the release of her new LP, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, which debuted at Number Two on the RS200, right below Nav, moving 81,100 album units.
The Rolling Stone Artists 500 chart ranks the most-streamed artists of the week in the United States, taking into account audio streams across an artist’s entire catalog during the tracking period. The chart does not include passive listening such as terrestrial radio or digital radio. The Artists 500 is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ending the previous Thursday.
There was one other major shake-up in the Top 10 of the artists 500: Rapper Lil Durk secured the Number 10 spot with 72.1 million song streams as his latest project, Just Cause Y’all Waited 2, bowed at Number Five on the Top 200, moving 54,800 album units. And, just outside the Top 10, recent Rolling Stone cover star Bad Bunny saw a solid surge as he jumped from Number 25 to Number 11 with 69.6 million streams thanks to the release of his new LP, Las Que No Iban A Salir, which premiered at Number Seven on the RS200.
Otherwise, the Top 10 featured many familiar faces: Da Baby landed at Number Two with 85.2 million streams, Lil Uzi Vert at Three with 82.5 million streams, Youngboy Never Broke Again at Four with 81.7 million streams, Lil Baby at Five with 79.1 million streams, Post Malone at Eight with 74.1 million streams and the Weeknd at Nine with 72.6 million streams.