Scoreboard: Future Takes #1

Future and his self-titled album take #1 on the Billboard 200 this week; International Scoreboard introduces Rag’n’Bone Man.

Billboard Artist Top 10

For the magazine dated March 11, 2017

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

On this week’s Scoreboard, the major move belongs to Atlanta rapper Future whose surprise self-titled album takes #1 on the Billboard 200 and lands five songs on the Hot 100. @future, Billboard’s #12 artist of 2016, also takes #1 on the Artist 100, a position he is bound to hold next week as well when another new Future album will make its mark on the Billboard 200. If Future’s HNDRXX takes #1 next week, he will become the first artist ever to have back-to-back #1 album debuts on the chart! However, Future Hendrix’s reign at #1 will then be ended by Ed Sheeran who this week maintains his hold at #1 on the Hot 100 with “Shape Of You” and who will certainly reclaim #1 on the Artist 100 once his new album ÷ (Divide) makes its chart impact (it came out globally on March 3rd).

Ed Sheeran selling his new album at the record store and scheming to take over the Scoreboard

FUTURE is Now

After some mixtape success, @future made his first mark on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 2011 guest-rapping on YC‘s catchy “Racks.” “Racks on racks” may have been YC’s one-hit-wonder high mark, but for Future it was just the start to one of the most successful rap careers of the decade. Just this week, he has three songs on the Hot 100 NOT off of his new album. There is the single “Used To This” ft. Drake, a frequent collaborator, a guest appearance on Ariana Grande‘s “Everyday,” on which @future simply barks the song title over and over on, and an appearance on Maroon 5‘s “Cold,” the second single off of the group’s forthcoming album. Although @future is happy to be a rapper-for-hire, the new #1 album in the U.S. is notable being a solo release.

Future’s futuristic hip-hop style has become ubiquitous in hip-hop, and on FUTURE’s “Zoom” he reminds the up-and-comers copying his style about who is #1. He also raps about how he is a “Super Trapper.” On “Draco” he celebrates his AK-47 and on opener “Rent Money” he raps about drugs, guns, and women while putting down his rivals. To paraphrase his collaboration album with Drake, what a time to be Future. Watch for him again on next week’s Scoreboard with another big album.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQgA-lFlxAX/?taken-by=future&hl=en

@future getting all contemplative while releasing TWO new albums

International Scoreboard: Rag’n’Bone Man

With American charts dominated by Future and Ed Sheeran, it is a good time to look over at the British charts. There, The Chainsmokers are not messing around with two top 10 hits and Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” is #1 on the Official Singles Chart. The most compelling NEW artist in the top 10 is known as Rag’n’Bone Man, sitting at #4 with “Human.” @ragnbonemanuk comes from East Sussex in southern England and his singer-songwriter rock combines with hip-hop for a compelling genre-bending sound.

“Human” recalls brooding 1970’s soul of Bill Withers, the more recent global success of Hozier‘s “Take Me To Church,” and the thoughtful lyrics of Grammy country winners Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson. There is also his presence, “6ft 5in tall, heavily tattooed and built like a Viking,” which makes him hard to miss or forget. With the success of “Human” in Europe, he will surely become famous in the U.S. soon. Although the song is not yet on the Hot 100 it is already #1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Songs chart and at #65 on the Canadian Hot 100. Check out “Human” below and stay tuned to Scoreboard to see if he can make the Billboard Artist Top 10 in 2017: