RS Charts: Drake Fends Off Lil Baby for Third Week Atop Artists 500 Chart

Drake captured the Number One spot on the Artists 500 for the third week in a row, pulling in 122.6 million streams for the week of June 12th through June 18th.

The Toronto rapper’s closest challenger was Lil Baby, who underscored an impressive week on the charts with a rise from Number Five to Number Two, but he ultimately didn’t have quite enough to eke past Drake. As a testament to Drake’s overall streaming prowess, the rapper held onto Number One on the RS500 even as his latest single, “Toosie Slide” fell from Number Six to Number 10 on the Top 100 Songs chart with 12 million streams, and his latest project, Dark Lane Demo Tapes, held fast at Number Six on the Top 200 Albums chart, moving 35,000 album-equivalent units.

Contrast that with Lil Baby, who’s new protest song, “The Bigger Picture,” debuted at Number Two on the RS 100 with 26.4 million streams. That helped his latest album, My Turn — released in February — notch another week at Number One on the RS 200, moving 72,000 album units. Nevertheless, Lil Baby’s total streaming tally fell well behind Drake’s, reaching 105.7 million for the week.

The Rolling Stone Artists 500 chart ranks the most-streamed artists of the week in the United States, taking into account audio streams across an artist’s entire catalog during the tracking period. The chart does not include passive listening such as terrestrial radio or digital radio. The Artists 500 is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ended the previous Thursday.

There weren’t any major new songs or albums to significantly shake up the Artists 500 chart this week. Even the week’s second biggest new single, Tekashi 6ix9ine and Nicki Minaj’s “Trollz,” which debuted at Number Three on the RS100, failed to boost either artist in the upper echelons of the chart. Same goes for the K-pop group NCT 127, whose new LP The 2nd Album ‘NCT 127 Neo Zone’ debuted at Number 13 on the RS 200, moving 26,000 album units, though only amassing 1.1 million streams, which wasn’t enough to help get them on the RS500 at all.

As such, the RS 500 remained fairly steady for this week. DaBaby came in at Number Three with 78.5 million streams as his latest single, “Rockstar,” with Roddy Ricch, notched another week at Number One on the RS 100. Post Malone followed at Four with 76.7 million, Lil Uzi Vert landed at Five with 72.8 million, Youngboy Never Broke Again captured Six with 70.1 million, Future fell at Seven with 68 million, The Weeknd landed at Eight with 65.6 million, Juice WRLD at Nine with 59.6 million and Gunna at 10 with 54.9 million. Outside the Top 10, though, J. Cole saw a bit of a bounce, jumping from Number 29 to Number 18 as he picked up 43.1 million streams following the release of his new song, “Snow on tha Bluff,” which debuted at Number 32 on the RS 100.