Chicago emcee Kanye West has knocked Beyoncé off the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 with his Vultures 1 track ‘Carnival’. The vocalist had previously held the number-one spot with her latest single ‘Texas Hold ‘Em.’ However, she has now been relegated to number two.
‘Carnival’ features Playboi Carti and Rich The Kid as well as Ty Dolla $ign, who Kanye has worked alongside for his latest Vultures trilogy. The first instalment of the trilogy peaked at number one on the Billboard 200.
Kanye has become the first emcee ever to have a number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 in three different decades (2000s, 2010s and 2020s). He has had the most extended series of shart-toppers in hip-hop history. This year marks 20 years since West topped the chart with his College Dropout single ‘Slow Jamz’.
Vultures 1 appeared on streaming platforms in the middle of the night with no notice, and fans woke up to a treat from West. Fans were expecting a big and bold release. However, the project came silently and generated tremendous buzz upon its arrival.
Vultures 1 stayed at the top of the Billboard 200 for two weeks. The sequel to Vultures was supposed to arrive on March 8th. However, as usual, West has delayed the project’s release, leaving fans waiting.
Kanye has told fans that the follow-up may not be available on Spotify and posted, “Was talking with the team about how to release the next album. Like James Blake said, streaming devalues our music. We sell albums on Yeezy.com. I got 20 million Instagram followers. When 5% of my followers buy an album.”
He continued, “That’s 1 million albums sold. That’s 300k more than the biggest album last year. We sold 1 million items on Yeezy.com on Super Bowl Sunday, so we know it’s possible. How do you feel about us not streaming and only selling the album digitally.”