LOS ANGELES, Aug 18 — The boundary-pushing rappers have broken the record for the most streams by a song in its debut week with their raunchy collaboration WAP, which opened at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
WAP amassed 93 million streams in the United States and 125,000 downloads sold in the week ending August 13, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data.
The streaming sum for the provocative single is the largest ever for a song in its first week of release, surpassing the 85.3 million streams garnered by Ariana Grande’s 7 Rings in its first week of availability in February 2019.
Much of the song’s traffic owes much to the shock value of its graphic lyrics as well its censored YouTube video, which has garnered more than 106 million views on the video-sharing platform to this date.
The Colin Tilley-directed video notably includes appearances from Normani, Rosalía and cosmetic mogul Kylie Jenner, whose inclusion was criticised online by some listeners and helped increase the song’s streams and views.
The success of WAP is the latest sign of female rappers taking over the charts while pushing their way into the forefront of the hip-hop game, which has long been dominated by male powerhouses.
According to Billboard, WAP is the fourth collaboration between female artists to hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart this year, most of which have been in the hip-hop genre.
Megan Thee Stallion achieved similar success earlier this year with her Savage hit, which became a phenomenon on the video-sharing app TikTok and was later re-released as a remix featuring Beyonce. — AFP-Relaxnews
