RS Charts: J. Cole Replaces Himself at Number One With ‘My Life’

A deluge of J. Cole tracks took over the latest Rolling Stone Top 100 Songs chart: Following the release of The Off-Season, the rapper scored eight of the ten most popular tracks in the country. 

The leader was “My.Life” with 21 Savage and Morray, which earned 36.4 million streams. (Cole and 21 Savage also earned a major hit with “A Lot” in 2019.) The Off-Season track “Amari” landed at Number Three with 32.8 million streams, followed by “Pride.Is.the.Devil” with Lil Baby (Number Four, 31.5 million) and album opener “95.South” (Number 5, 30 million streams). These songs helped push Cole’s “Interlude,” which debuted at Number One on the previous RS 100, down to Number Eight. Every song from The Off-Season debuted in the Top 20. 

Two artists prevented Cole from owning the entire Top Ten. The first was Olivia Rodrigo, whose new single “Good 4 U” shot to Number Two with 35 million streams. (“Good 4 U” preceded Sour, the singer’s debut album, which came out last Friday.) The other song to break Cole’s lock on the chart’s upper reaches came from Nicki Minaj: “Seeing Green,” a new collaboration with Drake and Lil Wayne, arrived at Number Nine with 17.8 million streams. All the high-powered new albums made for high turnover on the RS 100, as nine of the Top Ten this week were freshly released songs. 

Top Songs

The week of May 14, 2021
1

My.Life

J. Cole feat. 21 Savage, Morray
2

good 4 u

Olivia Rodrigo
3

Amari

J. Cole
4

Pride.is.the.Devil

J. Cole feat. Lil Baby
5

95.South

J. Cole

The Rolling Stone Top 100 chart tracks the most popular songs of the week in the United States. Songs are ranked by song units, a number that combines audio streams and song sales using a custom weighting system. The chart does not include passive listening like terrestrial radio or digital radio. The RS 100 chart is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ending with the previous Thursday.

Minaj released “Seeing Green” as part of Beam Me Up Scotty, a mixtape originally from 2009 that the rapper just made available on streaming services for the first time with a handful of new songs. The track “Fractions” also debuted at Number 35 (7.5 million streams), while “Itty Bitty Piggy” landed at Number 60 (5.6 million streams).

The TikTok star Bella Poarch also made her first appearance on the RS 100 this week. “Build a Bitch” marks the debut single from Poarch, who is one of the most popular creators on TikTok, with nearly 70 million followers. The single, which is co-written and co-produced by the artist Sub Urban, has already been used in more than two million TikTok videos; it debuted at Number 79 with 5.6 million streams. 

Next week, expect more high-streaming new singles to pepper the top of the RS 100: Not only a slew of songs from Rodrigo’s Sour, but also “Butter,” the latest single from the K-pop juggernauts BTS.

See the full RS 100 here.