Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” Gets Most U.S. Weekly Streams Since Adele’s “Hello”
Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles" continues to dominate the charts. The duo's hit single has topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the second week in a row and pulled off an impressive feat in doing so. "Black Beatles" racked up 54.1 million streams in the U.S., which is the most in one week since Adele's hit single "Hello" registered 61.6 in 2015.
The Gucci Mane-assisted "Black Beatles" jumped from No. 9 to No. 1 last week, thanks in large part to the Mannequin Challenge craze. Rae Sremmurd's ascent was the biggest jump on the chart since Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” skyrocketed from No. 53 to No. 1 back in June 2015.
The Mannequin Challenge, which began in October with some students at Jacksonville, Fla.'s Edward H. White High School, has transformed "Black Beatles" from a solid performer on the charts to the top song in the country. The original footage did not feature any music, but Rae Sremmurd's song has become the go-to soundtrack for most of the viral videos.
"I was going through Twitter and I saw a video, a little high school was doing the Mannequin Challenge and I thought it was cool so I brought it to everybody,” Slim Jxmmi told ESPN. “We made the freshest video ever and it went crazy dumb viral.”
The rise of "Black Beatles" is not simply confined to the Internet. The song is all over the radio too, going from No. 10 to No. 1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. That jump is the biggest in the chart's history.
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