Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s “Vultures” is the No. 1 album in the United States this week despite the 16-song set getting major pushback from streaming platforms for West’s antisemitic behavior.
The album was temporarily removed from streaming services just a few days after its release on Feb. 9 due to a complaint from its initial distributor, FUGA. The album returned to the platforms thanks to Label Engine, the company reportedly in charge of distribution.
Regardless, the album opened at No. 1 on Billboard’s all-genre-inclusive albums chart with over 167 million plays on streaming platforms and a total of 148,000 equivalent units, according to data provided by Luminate. This marks Ty’s first No. 1 album and West’s 11th.
Last year, West had been shopping for potential distributors after years of releasing music while signed to Universal Music Group. Now an independent artist, he reportedly was denied distribution services from numerous companies due to his problematic remarks.
The album’s 12th track — a controversial, Taylor Swift-referencing single titled “Carnival” — also scored a Top 10 entrance on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 3 behind Beyoncé’s country-infused “Texas Hold ‘Em” which sits at No. 2.
The latter is Beyoncé’s first No. 1 country single in the U.S. — a historic feat that makes her the first Black woman to secure the spot. As Billboard reports, Beyoncé is also the first woman to have topped both Hot Country Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. She joins Morgan Wallen, Justin Bieber, Billy Ray Cyrus and Ray Charles are the only acts to have hit No. 1 on both charts.
“Texas Hold ‘Em,” and its accompanying single “16 Carriages,” were both released during the Super Bowl. A spotlight was put on country radio as industry insiders investigated if the music would be serviced by Beyoncé’s label Columbia to country stations and, subsequently, how the industry would respond. Now, after Columbia announced late last week that it officially promoted “Texas Hold ‘Em” to country radio, the song leads the charts with 19.2 million official streams and 4.8 million all-format radio impressions. Meanwhile, “16 Carriages” gallops in with 10.3 million streams and 90,000 in radio reach.
Speaking with Variety, Brian Philips, chief content officer at Cumulus Media, the second largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the U.S., said, “This adds a completely unforeseen, unimagined new angle to country radio… We have 55 major country stations and it’s very hard to get them to agree on anything. But everybody at country wants to play it. We don’t have guys who are like, ‘It doesn’t fit our core sound.’ We have people who want to be part of the story and they’re all gonna do the same thing: play it and talk it up and get all the negative and all the positive out of the audience and see what the reaction is. It sounds like a really simple, catchy, hit pop-country song to me.”