SZA’S ‘SOS’ EXTENDS BILLBOARD 200 DOMINANCE AS NBA YOUNGBOY NOTCHES 13TH TOP 10 ALBUM

SZA has landed atop the Billboard 200 album charts for the fifth consecutive week, which also sees NBA YoungBoy score his 13th Top Ten album.

The singer’s sophomore project S.O.S. earned an additional 125,000 equivalent album units for the week ending January 12, only a 1 percent drop from SZA’s sales during the previous week. The album’s chart success also means the TDE songstress has matched or eclipsed a few other high-profile projects across various genres.

The last album to spend its first five weeks at the No. 1 position on the Billboard 200 was Adele’s 2021 album 30; while Janet Jackson was the last female R&B artist to achieve this feat with the 1993 release of janet.

SZA is also the first woman in R&B to top the chart for five consecutive weeks at any point following an album’s release in the 21st century. Additionally, S.O.S. is one of only four albums released in 2022 to maintain this long of a run on the Billboard 200, along with Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, Taylor Swift’s Midnights and the soundtrack to Disney’s Encanto.

Since delivering her second LP on December 9, SZA has celebrated a number of career milestones. In addition to becoming her first No. 1 album, S.O.S. landed the “Shirt” singer at the top of Spotify’s Top Artists Global daily chart on the day it was released. She knocked Bad Bunny out of the spot, becoming the first Black female artist to top the fan-driven chart.

S.O.S. also beat out Un Verano Sin Ti as the most streamed album on Spotify for the week ending December 22.

The songs from S.O.S. have also earned SZA some accolades to add to the project’s success. Twenty of the project’s 22 tracks debuted on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart, with “Kill Bill” and “Nobody Gets Me” landing in the chart’s top ten positions, the outlet reported last week.

“Kill Bill” has emerged as the apparent fan favorite, earning 43.9 million streams to close out last week in the No. 2 position on Spotify’s Weekly Top Songs Global chart behind Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

Last week, the song also became SZA’s first song to top the Billboard Global 200 chart, a ranking of songs based on streaming and sales activity accumulated from more than 200 territories around the world.

NBA YoungBoy has been on a tear with new music since he was found not guilty in his federal gun case back in July 2022. His ninth studio album, I Rest My Case arrived on January 6, two weeks after he dropped off Lost Files, his eighth full-length release of 2022 and the follow-up to October’s Ma’ I Got a Family.

The rapper’s first release on Motown Records debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, with 29,000 equivalent album units. In addition to extending his Top Ten count, to which YoungBoy added five last year alone; I Rest My Case is his 28th charting album since first breaking onto the listing with his 2017 mixtape AI Youngboy, which peaked at No. 24.

In November, Never Broke Again surpassed JAY-Z to become the artist with the most Billboard 200 entries after Ma’ I Got a Family debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 for the week ending October 28. To date Hov has had 24 solo projects make the chart, though it should be noted that Billboard does not consider the Beyoncé and JAY-Z collab album EVERYTHING IS LOVE as part of either artist’s solo discography.

NBA YoungBoy kicked off 2022 with the goal of releasing 10 projects, but fell just short of that goal with a total of 8 mixtapes, studio albums and collaborations.