Scoreboard: DJ Khaled and Gorillaz

This week on Scoreboard, DJ Khaled charges to #1 on the Hot 100 and Gorillaz have the biggest new album

Billboard Artist Top 10

For the magazine dated May 20, 2017

See the full chart at http://www.billboard.com/charts/artist-100

The biggest story on this week’s Scoreboard is DJ Khaled finally taking #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his new single and four collaborators. Over on the Artist 100 and on the Billboard 200 Kendrick Lamar remains at #1. Lamar’s DAMN. has held the top spot on the Billboard 200 each week since its release. The biggest new album of the week comes from Gorillaz, who are back with a new release for the first time in seven years. K-Pop boy band BTS also enters the Billboard Artist Top 10 for the first time ever, driven by social media buzz that has followed their second album and world tour in 2017.

Mary J. Blige is also back with her 13th album, Strength Of A Woman, which enters the Billboard 200 at #3

The Return of Gorillaz

Damon Albarn, lead singer of British indie rock group Blur, has had a lucrative side hustle for nearly two decades as the mastermind behind “virtual band” Gorillaz. The band is represented by four animated characters, with Albarn and studio musicians providing music behind the scenes (even on tour). The group’s biggest successes have come from rap-sung collaborations such as “Feel Good Inc.” ft. De La Soul, which went to #14 on the Hot 100 in 2005 and spent 45 weeks on the chart. Despite the feel good veneer of that hit, @gorillaz have had ominous tones throughout their music, and their latest album Humanz ups the sinister vibes. For example, on “Let Me Out,” Albarn partners with rapper Pusha T who starts off the song asking Mavis Staples “Obama is gone, who is left to save us?” That is indeed the thesis of the entire album on which you can find Vince Staples referring to America as a land “where you can live your dreams as long as you don’t look like me” and hear Danny Brown rap about how he is “tryna make ends meet with a week, no sleep.” Albarn and Gorillaz have always been able to set an apocalyptic scene, but the guest stars on Humanz bring in concrete reality to @gorillaz world. It’s not all doom and gloom though, towards the end of the album @gorillaz bring in Jehnny Beth of British punk band Savages on “We Got The Power,” an anthem celebrating the triumph of the human spirit in a dark world. That is the sound of Gorillaz and humanz delivering Feel Good Inc. in 2017.

Gorillaz start their #humanz tour in Luxembourg in November 2017

DJ Khaled is the one and is #1

Khaled Mohamed Khaled or @djkhaled has been a frequent Scoreboard subject. A year ago though, Khaled had neither a #1 album nor a #1 single on the Billboard charts to his credit. That changed last summer when Major Key took #1 on the Billboard 200 and led to a Miami Heat celebration on Instagram. This week @djkhaled finally gets his #1 on the Hot 100 with a new track that features chart regular Justin Bieber on the chorus and rappers Quavo (of Migos), Chance The Rapper, and Lil Wayne contributing verses. “I’m The One” is not only the first #1 for Khaled, but it is also the first top 40 hit for Chance and the first solo #1 for Quavo who reached the top of the Hot 100 earlier this year with Migos and “Bad And Boujee.”

The all-star collaboration becomes the first Billboard Hot 100 #1 in the history of the chart to credit five featured artists, which is also the most artists ever credited on a Billboard Hot 100 #1. Will “I’m The One” become song of the summer? Depends on whether Bieber’s “Despacito (Remix),” currently at #3 on the Hot 100, can challenge it. Check out the video for the superstar hit below and check Scoreboard every week to see who is #1 on the charts.