Taylor Swift’s run on top of the charts ended on Monday, when female rapper Cardi B knocked the pop singer out of the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, snagged the top spot on the Billboard chart with her new single “Bodak Yellow,” which replaced Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” atop the chart. Swift’s song, the first single she released from her forthcoming album Reputation, had been No. 1 for the past three weeks, since its Aug. 24 release, but the song dropped to the third spot on Billboard’s singles chart, behind Cardi B and Post Malone’s “Rockstar.”
“Bodak Yellow” had previously ranked at No. 2 on Billboard’s chart before catching fire in the past week in terms of sales, radio play, and streaming plays (the three measurements that comprise Billboard‘s “Hot 100” rankings). Billboard notes that the song’s streaming plays jumped by 14% in the week ending Sept. 21, while digital sales increased by 85% to 56,000 downloads in that period.
The new No. 1 song is the first-ever chart-topper for Cardi B, who Billboard said is the first female solo rapper to land a single at No. 1 since 1998—Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)”—and the Bronx-born rapper is also reportedly the first person of Dominican descent to ever top the chart. The New York Times called “Bodak Yellow” the “rap anthem of the summer” after the song dropped in June, and Cardi B even released a Spanish-language remix of the song with Latin artist Messiah last month.
Meanwhile, Swift will have to look to rebound with a bump in sales, streams, or plays this week for “Look What You Made Me Do,” her much-hyped new single. (In 2014, Swift’s “Shake It Off” single, from the album 1989, spent four non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard chart.) The singer released the song under a shroud of mystery last month and she followed it up with another single, “. . . Ready for It?”, earlier this month. Those are the first two songs from Reputation, which will be Swift’s first album release in three years. Swift is heavily promoting the new album, with corporate partnerships that include UPS and Target.
