Pop Smoke lands his first No. 1 on Billboard’s Rhythmic Songs airplay chart as “For the Night,” featuring Lil Baby and DaBaby, climbs from the runner-up rank on the chart dated Dec. 12. The track advances with a 7% boost in plays in the week ending Dec. 6, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data.
With the chart’s new champ, the late Pop Smoke caps a year in which he collected his first four visits to the Rhythmic list. He previously posted a No. 3 high, from “The Woo,” featuring 50 Cent and Roddy Ricch, in October. Debut breakout single “Dior” climbed to No. 28 in May, while his other current Rhythmic single, “What You Know Bout Love” jumps 24-17 on the latest chart. The latter title posted a 44% surge in plays in the tracking week.
Fans — and radio programmers, too, evidently — have actively supported late rapper’s new material following his death at age 20 in February. His posthumous debut LP, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, has logged the most weeks at No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for any project since 2012.
As “Night” rules Rhythmic Songs, Pop Smoke becomes the third artist to claim a posthumous No. 1 since the chart began in 1992. He follows Soulja Slim, whose featured turn on Juvenile’s “Slow Motion” helped the song reach No. 1 in July 2004, nearly eight months after his death in November 2003; and Static Major, whose death in February 2008 preceded his 12-week run at the summit as a guest act on Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop.”
Notably, as Soulja Slim and Static Major both topped the chart in featured roles, Pop Smoke is the first posthumous lead performer to score a No. 1 on Rhythmic Songs.
Lil Baby, meanwhile, picks up a third Rhythmic No. 1, after “Close Friends,” which led for one week at in 2019, and “Leave Em Alone,” with Layton Greene, City Girls and PnB Rock, a three-week champ in December 2019 – January 2020.
The other featured “Night” act, DaBaby, nabs a fourth No. 1 on the radio ranking, following his supporting turn on Post Malone’s “Enemies” (one week in 2019), a nine-week nonconsecutive domination from July to September 2020 with “Rockstar,” featuring Roddy Ricch, and another frame on top by assisting Jack Harlow on “What’s Poppin” (which also featured Tory Lanez and Lil Wayne).
Adding to DaBaby’s 2020 Rhythmic wins, “Poppin” interrupted the “Rockstar” reign at No. 1 for one week in July, allowing the rapper to become one of a handful of acts to knock himself from the chart’s summit.
Beyond its Rhythmic Songs coronation, “Night” holds at No. 2 on Rap Airplay for a second straight week, though it improves 11% in audience in the week ending Dec. 6. It likewise repeats its No. 11 standing on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, where it adds 12% in audience reach to 10.6 million in the same period, its first time cracking the nine-digit listener threshold.