NEWS
Rauw Alejandro
90thshooterRauw Alejandro blasts from No. 31 to No. 3 on the June 12-dated Billboard Global 200 with "Todo de Ti" (and 18-3 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart). It's the Puerto Rican rapper, singer-songwriter and producer's first top three (or even top 20) hit on the worldwide ranking. More rare, it's only the third all-Spanish-language song to hit the top three since the chart premiered in September 2020.
Since the list launched, 35 songs have graced the top three. Most of those are sung entirely in English.
Six top-three hits break the mold, however, and can be split into two categories. The first is for songs in a mix of languages, one of which is English. The second is for songs written and performed entirely in languages other than English.
The former category includes three Korean/English-language songs, two of which held the top two positions on the Oct. 17, 2020, chart. That week, Jawsh 685, Jason Derulo and BTS ruled the ranking with "Savage Love – Laxed (Siren Beat)." The then-new BTS remix of the track added lyrics in Korean in addition to the song's original English blueprint. Directly beneath was BLACKPINK with a No. 2 debut for "Lovesick Girls," with verses trading off between the two languages.
In December, BTS was back atop the list with "Life Goes On," a primarily Korean-language song that features some prominent English lyrics in its chorus.
The second category, for songs with no English, includes three hits, all in Spanish.
Again, two of those songs charted in the top three simultaneously. Bad Bunny and Jhay Cortez's "Dakiti" ruled the Nov. 21-dated ranking, while Maluma's "Hawái" rose to No. 3. Ultimately, "Dakiti" scored three weeks at No. 1 in November-December and stretched to a total of 10 nonconsecutive weeks in the top three, becoming the only song with non-English vocals to rank in the top three for more than one week so far.
While holding the same position on the Global Excl. U.S. chart, the song performed better internationally, with 91% of its streams and 54% of its sales from outside the U.S., compared to the week's respective averages of 75% and 46%.
And while the track's streams split 55% vs. 45% in terms of audio vs. video, that breakdown slants closer toward video than the average song on the Global 200 this week, which derived 78% of all streams from audio services. The song's giddy roller-rink themed (and Shaquille O'Neal-featuring) official video drew 45.7 million streams worldwide in the tracking week, helping the song, which Alejandro teased on social media ahead of its official May 21 release, further cut through the competition on the global stage.
NEWS
No matter what you thought of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, there was only one undisputed winner by the end of it all: the reaction community in the worlds of streaming and YouTube. Your favorite content creators broke down the bars, reacted to all the most shocking moments, and helped this showdown become one of hip-hop's most culturally significant and resonant moments in a long time... For better or worse. See, the battle's technically not over yet, but only because the 6ix God's idea of victory is clearly quite different. In his federal defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group – his label – for releasing K.Dot's "Not Like Us," he named various content creators who allegedly helped boost the track's widespread popularity and, as a result, its supposedly defamatory nature.
Furthermore, the specific allegation that Drake brings up in this highly controversial lawsuit is that UMG "whitelisted" copyright claims for YouTubers, streamers, etc. concerning "Not Like Us." This means that they would be able to monetize their content without facing a copyright claim from UMG over "Not Like Us," and this isn't really an allegation because various creators have backed this up. But a few important (alleged) caveats that people are talking about online need to be clear. First, "whitelisting" supposedly happens on behalf of a record label behind a song like the West Coast banger, and UMG is instead the distributor of that track. Secondly, as rapper and online personality ScruFaceJean brings up as seen in the post below, tracks like "Push Ups" were also "whitelisted" by its team.
Along with Jean, many other of your favorite content creators spoke out against this Drake lawsuit. Zias! and B.Lou, for example, spoke with their lawyer about the possibility of countersuing for emotional distress, as they found the Toronto superstar's accusations and his implication of them very disturbing and misguided. NoLifeShaq also dragged The Boy through the mud, calling him "soft" and positing that, whether "whitelisting" happened or not, they would react to "Not Like Us" accordingly as they did to his own tracks.
In addition, it's important to bring up that many others fans have pointed to how Drake excitedly used streamers to generate hype and reaction clips for his own diss tracks against Kendrick Lamar. The most direct example is with Kai Cenat, whom he texted to "stay on stream" before dropping "Family Matters." Ironically, the Twitch giant appears in this clowned-upon defamation lawsuit as an example of what the OVO mogul's accusations and implications are. And one more thing: there is no direct link between monetization and algorithmic boosting on sites like YouTube. With all this in mind, content creators seem to feel almost insulted at the idea that they only reacted to the two biggest rappers in the world beefing with each other because one of them would allow them to make money. If Drizzy knew the first thing about the reaction community, maybe he wouldn't have included this...
