It’s not just us. For those who pay attention to the “inside baseball” aspect of the music industry, among the biggest chart stories of recent weeks is Teddy Swims careening towards a Billboard record. Rather than just a reflection on his personal staying power, it is an indication of overall chart stagnance that keeps cropping up in recent years. There’ll be plenty of time to discuss the larger implications as that, but if nothing else, it does make us feel justified in focusing on the new blood that enters on a weekly basis. This week’s group? Travis Scott and his Jackboys 2 collaborative project, the fruits of Clipse and their Let God Sort ‘Em Out, and Renée Rapp as she heads towards a sophomore record.
Travis Scott, Jackboys, And Clipse The Biggest Hip-Hop Stories
The “hip hop is pop music” moment may be in the rearview, but the genre’s biggest stars are still more than able to solely capture our attention. Especially when it’s a name as significant as Travis Scott, picking up lead-off duty with his label round-up LP, Jackboys 2. While cuts from the album pace our list throughout, “SYHNE” is the main takeaway, a duo effort between La Fame and Memphis’ GloRilla. Plenty catchy in its own right, some off-the-wall snippets within no doubt boost the song. The two most notable: Glo’s racy shoutout of Matthew McConaughey or Scott’s scat ad-libs in signature autotune, a moment riding the “so bad it’s good” line that’s bore viral success plenty of times before.
Clipse put on a real show in the rollout for their comeback album, Let God Sort ‘Em Out, and the results are beginning to come in. Now through complete weeks of tracking, they can add some serious streaming buzz to the widespread critical acclaim for the effort. Three have emerged as the real standouts, at least on a commercial level.
“Chains & Whips” featuring Kendrick Lamar is no surprise given the Compton MC’s well-established dominance. Nearly a month of data assists “So Be It” as it easily made the biggest splash of any preliminary singles. Finally, “P.O.V” with Tyler, The Creator perhaps shows some early benefits on the back of a name who just made a splash with the “how did he make this so fast” DON’T TAP THE GLASS. Though it may not sound like a serious claim, each of those records flirt with the #150 mark on our rankings, an achievement for, on paper, a duo decades removed from their chart-dominating ways.
Renée Rapp Gears Up For A Potential Defining Arc
Lastly, at Music Daily we’ve always got an eye on the traditional pop scene. While giants like Sabrina Carpenter loom to make late summer splashes, another member of the Taylor Swift alumni is flirting with entering that same discussion. Renée Rapp has earnestly started the rollout for her sophomore album. Though it’s too early to see how its third single, “Why Are You Still Here,” has performed, its two predecessors are putting in work in the “bubbling under” category: “Leave Me Alone” at #108 and “Mad” at #133. As we said to lead off this piece, nowadays it takes both longevity and earworm status to enter the upper echelon, but clearly audiences’ interests are piqued in the early goings of the next Renée Rapp chapter.
