Which rap album has the most number-one singles?
It’s difficult to release a number-one hit single, but to release several chart-topping singles from one album is a rare thing indeed. Certain pop stars have achieved it, of course, but the task has traditionally proven more difficult for rappers.
While rap songs have been a feature of the charts for decades now, songs that actually reached number one were, initially, fairly unusual. Vanilla Ice is credited with scoring the first US rap chart-topper in 1990, with ‘Ice Ice Baby,’ but, in the years after that, number-one rap songs cropped up sporadically.
Chart-topping rap songs started to appear more frequently in the late ’90s, while the 2000s saw it become quite normal. Rap music was arguably dominant in the charts throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s.
Lots of rap number-ones have been accounted for since ‘Ice Ice Baby’ first started the trend three and a half decades ago, but, as for rap albums bearing several number one songs, that, understandably, has been rarely seen.
2Pac’s All Eyez on Me featured two number-one singles in the form of ‘California Love’ and ‘How Do U Want It,’ while his arch enemy Biggie Smalls also scored two number-one singles from Life After Death, with ‘Hypnotize’ and ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ each reaching the top of the Billboard 100 following his murder.
50 Cent, Eminem and Outkast are among the big-name rap artists to have ever released two number-one singles from the same album, while there are several others to do it, too. But, as a general rule, it doesn’t happen very often.
As for an artist who’s ever released more than two number-ones songs from one album, only one can claim the honour. In 2018, Drake released his fifth album Scorpion, which debuted at the top of the US Billboard 200 albums chart.
Seven singles were released from Scorpion, with each of them entering the top 20 in America. But three of them actually went to number one: ‘God’s Plan,’ ‘Nice for What,’ and ‘In My Feelings.’
No other rap album can so far compare to Scorpion’s record of three number-one songs. The day, surely, will eventually come when a rap album goes at least one further, but, for now, this is just another chart record that Drake can boast.