Lil Wayne is back at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week with his semi-surprise new album Funeral, which instantly became his fifth leader on the tally when it debuted.
The rapper didn’t preview the project with any singles, but four of the 24 tracks featured on the setlist do appear on the Hot 100, raising his career count even higher than it already was. Just one of those tunes opens inside the top 40 region on the Hot 100, and by doing so, it has helped the hip-hop staple make history.
Funeral song “I Do,” which features fellow hip-hop musicians Big Sean and Lil Baby, blasts onto the Hot 100 at No.
33, giving all involved another true hit. The song is the tenth top 40 for Lil Baby, the seventeenth for Big Sean, and, incredibly, the eighty-second for Lil Wayne, who breaks out of a tie with a legendary rocker on the list of the musicians who have collected the most on the chart throughout its decades-long tenure.
With 82 top 40 Hot 100 to his name, Lil Wayne moves one smash ahead of Elvis Presley, according to Billboard. The “Hound Dog” powerhouse is stuck with 81 placements inside the important area on the tally, which typically defines when a song has become a proper . The rapper and the rocker were tied for second place until this week, and now one holds onto the title of the second-most top 40s while the other slips to third.
Leading the way among all artists when it comes to top 40 is Drake, who recently became the first musician to push 100 different tracks that close to the top. Both Drake and Lil Wayne have been able to accrue an astounding number of hit singles thanks to a non-stop work ethic, a back catalog of dozens of albums, mixtapes and the like, and countless featured spots on tracks fronted by other acts. Presley scored his top 40s back when a musician primarily pushed their own songs, and duets and collaborations weren’t nearly as common as they are now.
Lil Wayne is far from done collecting top 40 successes, but he isn’t adding to his total as rapidly as he used to. It’s unlikely he catches up to Drake anytime soon, as the Canadian superstar is also always dropping new tracks that perform very well and increasing his lead over every other act.
This Article Was First Published on forbes.com
