Kanye West has landed his first No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 in 13 years thanks to the Vultures 1 track "Carnival."
As reported by Billboard, Ye and Ty Dolla Sign's "Carnival," which features Rich the Kid and Playboi Carti, has risen to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 after sitting at No. 2 in the previous week.
Ye used the moment as an opportunity to say "fuck Drake" and attack Adidas, among many others.
The achievement is West's fifth No. 1 overall and Ty Dolla Sign's second, while it also scores both Rich the Kid and Carti their first-ever No. 1 song. As a result of the placement, Ye, 46, is now the oldest rapper to top the chart. He's the only rapper to earn a No. 1 hit in three different decades, first doing so with the Twista and Jamie Foxx collaboration "Slow Jamz" in 2004.
While Kanye did score a No. 1 thanks to his feature on Katy Perry's "E.T." in 2011, "Carnival" is his first as a lead (or co-headlining) artist since 2007's "Stronger." He's often fared well on the Hot 100, but he's typically done better on the Billboard 200 albums chart, with 11 total No. 1 albums.
"Carnival" is the longest break between Hot 100 No. 1s for an artist since Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" hit No. 1 a record 63 years after her song "I Want to Be Wanted" achieved the same feat in 1960.
In a video on his Instagram Stories, Ty Dolla Sign said, "Thank you to my brother Ye for your loyalty, for always being a real one, always doing whatever you said you was gonna do and making that shit happen. Shoutout to my brother Rich the Kid, came through to Saudi to fuck with n***as. ... Shoutout to my brother Carti for coming through with one of the hardest verses ever."
He also thanked the song's producers and engineers and reminded fans that Vultures 2 is "on the way."
On Monday night, just hours after news of the track's latest feat was announced, a riot-centric "Carnival" visual that's somewhere in between a music video and lyric video dropped. It was created by Jon Rafman with CGI by Dario Alva and Garrett McGale.
Catch the visual and official cover art below.
It'll be interesting to see if Ye—who has battled controversy only to climb back to chart success—can once again top the Billboard 200 albums chart with the arrival of his second collaborative album with Ty Dolla Sign, Vultures 2. He recently revealed that the project, which doesn't have a firm release date yet, won't be available on streaming services because he thinks Spotify and Apple Music devalue music. It'll only be attainable via his website for $20. This marks a similar pattern to 2021's Donda, which was widely released, and 2022's Donda 2, which was only on Ye's Stem Player.
