As we reached the mid-point of 2023, one of the biggest topics of discussion among music fans was how no rap album had yet reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart — the first time this had failed to occur by July since 1993. The long streak has finally been broken, however, by Lil Uzi Vert, whose third studio album Pink Tape entered the albums chart at the top, also marking Uzi’s third album to reach No. 1.
.@LILUZIVERT's 'Pink Tape' officially debuts at No. 1 on this week's #Billboard200 chart, becoming their third career No. 1 album.
It's the first No. 1 rap album of 2023.
— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) July 10, 2023
As Billboard notes, the last time the first half of the year featured no rap No. 1s was in 1993 — two years before Uzi was even born — when Cypress Hill’s Black Sunday debuted at No. 1 on the August 7th chart, 34 weeks after Ice Cube’s The Predator. The last rap album to reach No. 1 before Pink Tape was Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains on the December 17 chart, a 29-week gap.
Between the two, SZA’s SOS and Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time have absolutely dominated the No. 1 spot, at 10 and 15 nonconsecutive weeks each, respectively, while four albums each spent one week at the top. Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito, Stray Kids’ 5-STAR, Taylor Swift’s Midnights, and TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation. That’s a lot of K-pop.
This week’s top 10 sees Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time at No. 2, Peso Pluma’s Génesis at No. 3, Midnights at No. 4, and Wallen’s previous album Dangerous: The Double Album at No. 5. The remaining five, in order, are SZA’s SOS Gunna’s A Gift & A Curse, Swift’s Lover, Aespa’s MY WORLD, and Rylo Rodriguez’s Been One.
